52

It's Shauna's 52nd birthday, or at least it is the day that we are celebrating it. I have set this post to publish at 10am, which is when we'll be sitting down at the restaurant for breakfast with her and the kids. I may be giving her the real versions of the card and composite photo just as you are reading this, just so she won't have seen them before.

It has to be a breakfast celebration since anything else would interfere with the kid's work schedules. Danica will be off to Perth to work at the seniors residence that Shauna oversees, and Jonathan will soon be at the grocery store, carrying groceries out to the folks who have ordered pickup.

This is our card to her: front and then inside. 

Not too long ago, I posted some newly scanned photos of the two-year old Shauna, but I kept her first birthday photos aside for just this moment, my fav being this one ↓ that I used for the front on the card that you saw above.

But I also did something which I haven't done in quite awhile: made a full collage. 

Once upon a time, I would composite collages by hand, and I made a number of photo albums using this technique. Now, Sue can do composites easily and quickly using automated phone apps, but I did this the old-fashioned way by dragging each picture into photoshop and then arranging them. All of the photos, except maybe the sleeping one were taken on the day of her 1st birthday: December 20 1973. (Due of circumstances, we are celebrating a few days late this year.)

Here are two more of the photos in the composite that I think deserve their own space.

As I experimented with developing b&w negatives and prints way back in '73, I can tell you that I had no concept of how I would be sharing them and to whom I would be sharing them, 51 years later. The personal computer had yet to be heard of. Even then, which was about 10 years later for me, computers basically only crunched numbers or displayed text. It would be another 17 years after I took these pictures before Photoshop would be released.

Addendum

At the last minute, Sue asked me for a greeting to tape to a folder that would contain other bits and pieces. Rather than just type Happy Birthday, I found a scan of an old slide. This was taken on Christmas Day 1972 as we were about to leave the hospital to bring Shauna home. I replaced the background for a bit of photo fun, including eliminating the doctor who delivered her and who was standing beside us in the actual, unaltered photo. Forget the baby. Look at my hair!