The following story is one of my favorites. I heard Paul Harvey tell the story a number of years ago and recently found the complete printed copy on the web and present it here. In the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, we are often told and reminded to remember the real reason for our celebrations. This is a great story that I hope will bring some clarity to this crazy time of year. We at First Edition Custom Printing and Graphicsmith Studios wish you a Merry Christmas.
Allen Smith


The Man and the Birds
by Paul Harvey

The man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man.

"I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound...Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud...At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them...He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms...Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me...That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him.

"If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safe, warm...to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand." At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells - Adeste Fidelis - listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Holiday Schedule

Graphicsmith Studios and First Edition Custom Printing will close Friday, December 18, 2009 for the Christmas and New Year Holidays. We expect to reopen January 5, 2010.

We hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Safe New Year.

Getting Ready For Santa

I spoke with Santa today. We've had such a strong respone this week with our final reminder that we're going to start earlier. We'll start at 9:00 am.

We will be closed some the rest of the week as we get ready for Santa. We'll be putting up the tree, hanging and moving backgrounds in the camera room and stuff like that. I'm certain we will be working late to get everything done.

As soon as we get the set finished, I'll take some of the test shots and post them here so folks coming on Saturday can get an idea about the set early.

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Last Chance for Santa

Santa will be here on Saturday, so now is the last chance to get an appointment. We've made our special packages more affordable this year, so don't wait. Just a few appointments are available.

This year's set will be a traditional-type set like we've had in the past. It won't be exactly the same as last year, but it will have the same traditional elements. Warm fireplace, beautiful tree with lots of presents, etc.

Bring the kiddies in their 'jammies, or dress them up any way you want. Santa will be here ready to hear what they want for Christmas.

Session fees will only be $20 this year. Packages are available for this special occasion.

Santa

Here's the official word - Santa will be in the studio Saturday, November 14. He will be here in the morning hours for a brief visit.

Mark your calendars. We'll get more info out on the website shortly.


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Brave New World

So we're now on Facebook and Twitter and we can update these feeds from our iPods. Look for regular updates on what we've got going on and what we have planned.


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Center Stage Dance Academy

OK, so we shot nearly 1600 images at the recital during the matinee and evening performances. That a lot of images, nearly 400 per hour. I never would have thought that many would be taken, but the recital was great, so you just shoot and shoot.

After culling about 300 of the images, we've been trying to get about 1300+ online since Sunday night. It has been a nightmare and the solution was not the best, but it worked and the images are posting as I type this. The photos are grouped according to the dance name. If you know their outfit or dance name, you will have no problem finding them.

These images were to be posted Sunday night/Monday morning, but a server issue (that is still unresolved) reared its head again. The weekend before the recital, the data that makes up our website, and five others we host, was moved to a new machine. After we caught up with the change, all looked well. Then I needed to post images to our Gallery and things fell apart again. We've got two Gallery sites, so if one doesn't work, then the other will. Not in this case. Long story short, the server oompaloompas still don't have it fixed so we installed Gallery on our First Edition Custom Printing site and got things moving again.

The Gallery on the Graphicsmith Studios site is due for retirement with the new site, so it may not get fixed for new images. The one over at www.thegraphicsmith.net is due for an upgrade, so it will get fixed with the upgrade. Both still work, but we can't put new photos up until they are fixed.

Most of the new portraits and weddings are going to our new online proofing site anyway.

I hope everyone enjoys the dance photos.

Allen

Welcome to the new blog!

Welcome to the new blog.

We're making changes to our website, so things will start looking different really soon. We've moved the blog because of the changes and because it had become corrupted with comment-spam attacks.

Here's what's coming up:

Bunnies - March 17-21

Ducks - March 24-28