Thomas Hawk, my favorite photographer and one of my favorite bloggers, has a post today containing 10 Tips for the New Digital SLR Photographer.

I have been hoping he would add photography tips to his blog. I don’t know if this is the beginning of a trend or not, but I sure hope so. I can think of no photographer I would rather learn from than Thomas.

If you need proof of what a great photographer he is, take a look at this, or this, or this, or just about every photo in his Flickr Stream.

Uncle Scott, Aunt Kelly, Hunter and Hayden are visiting from Fort Worth on their way to Galveston for spring break.

The girls were so excited they camped out by the front door waiting for their cousins to get here. As soon as they did, it was into bathing suits and off the big wall.

I couldn’t post this before Christmas, because it was one of Raina’s presents, but I ordered one of the photo books Flickr sells in partnership with Qoop, and it looks great. Here’s how easy it is to do.

First I made a new set of my Flickr photos and included all the photos I uploaded in 2005. Then I reordered them from oldest to newest so they’d be in chronological order. Then I clicked on the set to get to my Flickr page for that set and selected “Make Stuff” in the menu bar. That took me to the Qoop page where I selected an 8×10, 2 photos to a page, two sided, glossy photo album. I refreshed the cover page selection until I got a mix I liked and titled the book “Newsome Family Photos 2005.” I bought 2 115 page, professionally bound photo books for a hair over $100 each. I gave one to Raina and one to my sister. These books are reasonably priced and look great. I can’t recommend them highly enough. I can’t believe you can actually buy something like this- and for only $100!

Yesterday I decided to print some photos of Luke to send to people back home. I selected the photos I wanted to print via the “Order Prints” link on the menu bar of the photo page, and went to checkout, where I was again amazed by Flickr. I paid 20 cents a piece for the prints, and was given the option of having the prints mailed or picking them up at my neighborhood Target store in one hour- that’s right, in one hour. I decided to pick them up, which was easy and fast. And the prints look great. Plus, you must get a number of prints free, since I ordered 10 and my total price was $0.

Flickr continues to amaze me. What a great site and what great service.

I’ve been a bit out of pocket the past few days. Raina and I went to the hospital early Tuesday morning to have Cassidy and Delaney’s little brother. 32 and a half hours later, on Wednesday January 4, 2006, Luke Eutsler Newsome was born to a very exhausted mother and a very nervous father. He weighed 7 lbs, 15 oz. and was almost 22 inches long.

Luke because it was Raina’s favorite out of all the names we considered.

Eutsler in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Bill Eustler, who have been like a second set of parents to me, particularly after my father died when I was very young. If this little guy can be half the man his namesake is, I will be very proud of him.

Raina and Luke will hopefully get to come home on Saturday. The girls are very excited about their little brother and can’t wait until he gets home.