9-28-08 We are shooting ACL for the New York Times yesterday and today. It's nice to see the show under the wing of the New York Times because people treat you like royalty and thank goodness, because it's a hard job to do sometimes.

We don't have any pictures for you for that yet since the newspaper gets first dibs and they are publishing on Tuesday.

So today instead I am going to put together from our most recent party. Steve and I found out we were pregnant in April and until recently it was both a boy and a girl. 20 weeks came about 5 weeks ago so we learned we are being blessed with a sweet faced  baby boy and we are overjoyed. So we had a party with all of our family to celebrate him. It was a BBQ and pool party. The next day our family stuck around to help us with some home improvements items, like changing out a ceiling fan, all things I can't do while I am in the family way ;) I was in the pool the day of the party so I didn't take any pictures.

however her are some pictures of our home improvement day, Hill and Reagan supervising, a fine example of how not to use 2 ladders, frustrated Steve reinstalling the ceiling fan, Steve's Dad staying a safe distance, and how many men does it take to install a ceiling fan anyway?! Just kidding everyone we appreciate all of your help.

---mel

9-27-08 Another wedding same weekend as Kodak

9-27-08

I was assisting on this wedding. So the lead photographer got all of the fun stuff and I picked up the background stuff. Hope you like it.

Today Steve and I are cover ACL together which should be super fun. I've never been able to take anyone to a show before. Steve will be my first. As it should be. 

9-26-08 No seriously where has the summer gone?

9-26-08

I can see now I already chatted a bit about the shoot for Kodak but you never got to see any images. Here are some images from the day shoot in San Antonio for Kodak and the Bravo Group.

Extra, Extra read all about it. I just got a quick call to cover ACL for the New York Times. I haven't been to ACL and there is no better way of doing that than under the cover of the New York Times ;) I should have picture on Wednesday since they publish on Tuesday.

See you soon.

---mel

7-30-09 Where HAS the summer gone?

7-30-08

I'll tell you!

Since my last post on June 17, I have shot a couple new jobs for People magazines. 2 Meaty stories about miracles and tragedies. The first was the story of the woman who had to undergo surgery for her prenatal daughter who had a tumor attached to her that was nearly her entire size. They both made it through with flying colors and the baby is doing wonderfully. 

The second was the story of young couple in Corpus Christi who lost their young twins to a freak overdose of Heprin. 

Lastly, I just shot a national ad campaign for Kodak. The shoot lasted one day but Kodak will get a lot of mileage out of our images. The team from Bravo Group in New York and Cibolo Films in San Antonio were outstanding to work with. It was a 100% pleasure. They should be rolling out that material any day now. It was a mad rush to get it out in the world. 

I know it's been way too long time since my last visit and for that I apologize. I will try to keep better tabs on the blog.

In closing here are a few images from the people shoots.

 

6-17-08 Father's Day in D/FW

6-17-08

Father's Day with Dad and Doug. Martha, my mother by marriage ;) came up with the best entertainment. We set up chairs around a kiddie pool with a toddler in it. It was awesome. Reagan was in heaven until we took off her pool shoes and then had a little bit of trouble with balance, she loved it.

Hope you enjoy.

See you tomorrow with some shots for People Magazine.

---mel

6-12-08 Jessica + Bryan

6-12-08

We went out and photographed Jessica + Bryan on Monday afternoon, it was a super hot day but we muscled thru and came away with some lovely images. We visited some new haunts in East Austin, though MY gps must have been turned off since I can't even recall where we were. 

Their wedding is coming up next year and I'm super excited, for the party, it sounds like it's going to be a blow out!

Jessica will be debuting her skills as a wedding coordinator for their wedding, so I'll definitely post plenty of detail shots for all of your brides out there on the look out for a great planner.

Thanks for looking and we'll see you soon.

---mel

6-5-08 People Magazine Spread

6-5-08

So as I promised I wanted to send out to you the pictures from the recent People Magazine shoot, sadly I had to wait an extra long time as the editors decided to run it in part on the cover of the magazine and also in the Australian edition, so I couldn't put anything up until now.

So if everyone remembers the story correctly, it was a big story here in Texas. The state authorities, based on the allegations of young woman, flooded the FLDS compound and removed over 400 children from their parents and placed them in foster care all around the state. Some parents like the Jessops, seen here, went to court claiming the state had no right as they do not practice polygamy in their family. They won their case the their children were returned two days before these shots were taken.

Thank you for waiting, enjoy them!

---mel

5-27-08 Full House

5-27-08

This weekend we had a full house. My mom, Mom Grizzel came for a visit. She came in from the 3 hour drive on Friday night and watched the balance of the Lakers/Spurs game with Steve and I and in the morning we chatted and had a fun time before the day started with our eyes barely cracked open, we chatted until we fell asleep again. We went out for lunch and saw the new Indiana Jones movie. 

It was the tiniest bit difficult for me to have a nice time because I was on call for People Magazine for an exclusive story. It was supposed to be done on Saturday but instead they called at the end of the day on Saturday with details about our shoot on Sunday instead. So Steve and I drove to an undisclosed location to cover the story with a local People stringer Anne. It was nice to meet her and our subject. The story should run on Friday. 3 pages I'm told, which is great for a non celebrity story in People. It's an exciting story and since we had an exclusive they gave us lots of room to run with it.  I'll post some pictures on Saturday after People gets their exclusive.

Mom had to go home on Monday morning, she is getting ready to sell her house and she needed to start getting it in order and cleaned out for her first open house soon. 

Just 5 hours after mom left we had our great friends Adam, Carlos, and Pam come to visit from New York. Pam is moving to Sante Fe, so she asked Adam to make the road trip with her and he looked on the atlas and saw that they would be going to Texas and assumed it would be a quick shot down to Austin so he called last month and asked if it would be alright to pop by. Then one night in a drunk blur Pam and Adam invited Carlos and he accepted so it was the 3 of them. They arrived on Monday at about 2pm and we started with margaritas and then we went out for Mexican. We took them to SoCo and we had Amy's, but they were really tired form their trip so we went home and they we all crashed accept Adam who apparently doesn't need sleep. We all got up and Steve went to work and they went on the last leg of their journey to Sante Fe. For the record they did stop in Memphis for some site seeing, it wasn't all just driving like you're in a race. It was sad to see them go, but Adam says he's coming back soon to spend some more time. 

We really thank you guys so much for taking the extra day out of your trip to come and visit with us.

So as I said I will post some shots from the People project on Saturday.

Thanks so much for looking.

---mel 

5-19-08 Surprise Parks visit

5-19-08

So yesterday my sister, brother-in-law Doug and their gorgeous offspring Reagan came for a somewhat surprise visit. We got the spend the afternoon together and Doug made breakfast, thank goodness for early risers ;) So our niece Reagan is growing like a weed and these images debut her 4 new pearly whites. They're new to me and her Uncle Steve. It seems she is way to busy to pose for pictures these days she has far too much to explore and admire, she is an absolute joy. Her mom and dad say the other thing she likes to do these days is to open and close things. When they left we had to run around closing all of the cabinets in the house.

Enjoy.

---mel

5-14-08 A Week

5-14-08

It's been a week since my last post. I haven't had a lot happening as of late so I haven't had much to chat about. i shot some stuff of Steve cleaning the pool the other day. It's his least favorite job in the world and never seems to end. I think this may be it, I think we're going to have to hire a pro. I don't think we'll hear any complaints from Steve-o.

Thanks for looking. Until next time.

---mel "she"

5-7-08 Kitty

5-7-08 Kitty

So I've been on here for a short while but I am coming to enjoy the idea of a digital journal and since no one is paying attention I can post about whatever I want for now and I choose this. Our cats. Their back story; Steve and I had a happy family in our little Brooklyn apartment for a few years before we wanted a pet and since out apartment was in the 300-500 sf vicinity we thought it would be cruel to have a dog + us. So we opted for cats and about that time, our friends sent an email saying his friend had a landlord (a bonafied animal freak.) was giving away a cat and her kittens so she could continue raising birds. So we intended to take a kitten a raise it for ourselves but when I spoke with this woman she said that we had to take the cat and her kittens and she didn't even know how many there were they were tucked up in an igloo house outside, in March in the Bronx. The weather was predicting the worst snow storm of the season that weekend and I couldn't bare the thought of these kittens freezing to death while we decided so we went and picked them all up. the Mamma cat, not happy about her move. She was such a terror that she almost overturned all of the convincing that I did on Steve. So we brought them home and watch in awe and amazement as nature took it's course with the new cats in out house and after a month all of their eyes were open and they were eating solid food and we slowly started giving them away. We picked our favorite the runt, also the first to leave the box, the curious and creative one, we name him Floyd, then we gave away a brother and sister to the same family a couple up the street and we gave one to the kid who lived across the hall. We tried to name Mamma Hooper but it never stuck, so it's Floyd and Mamma. Floyd is first and Mamma is second in the run of pictures. Thanks for looking.

---mel "she"

5-6-08 Anna + Alex

5-6-08

As many of you know , I have been working on launching our new website for a while now. While getting ready for that big day I have been going over a lot of really great work from yesteryear. Namely my very first wedding I ever shot. Anna + Alex, very good friends of mine in New York City. They had been dating fora short while just 6 months or so when Alex job was going to take him to San Diego, so they decided to wed quickly, just a little over a week to plan. It was on Halloween so many people came dressed in a costume. They married in a photo studio on the lower east side and had their reception @ a fun little lower east side diner. One of the waiters was dressed as a sailor so that made for some fun pictures with our bride. So they married and moved to San Diego in about 2 weeks time. Don't worry Alex work brought him back to New York City in a short 2 or so years. Here are my favs from that shoot.

---mel "she"

5-5-08 Cinco de Mayo

5-5-08

I mentioned before that this week was Steve's and my anniversary, so last night we found an elaborate recipe and made a lasagna together, it was quite good though I can't take all or the credit ;) It's all in honor of 2 years ago we tied the knot in New York City with family and friends. Within the wedding week we did a few things to tie it all together. 2 days before the wedding we did a city wide scavenger hunt, where we met up with family and friends @ Virgin in Union Square, since alot of our guests were tourists and wouldn't have alot of time to tour, we thought we'd give them the quick grand tour. Each participating group was given a list of sites and each group had a digital camera. We were set loose to take pictures of ourselves running around town seeing the site. My group was Hillarie (Matron of honor/sister) Doug (BIL) Suzanne (Best Friend/Bridesmaid) Hannah (her daughter/bridesmaid) and me (bride). Steve's group was Steve, Patty + Jim (his parent) Jeff (Friend/Groomsmen) Kristina (Friend)

I wanted to win so I made my group race and race but alas they all wimped out and got tired. So we went back to the hotel where we met up with the rest of our group who didn't make it in until super late and we had almost the entire cast of the wedding at Chevys @ the hotel, we probably should have called and warned them first ;)

See you tomorrow with some photo booth picts.

---mel "she"

Photo 1

Hannah's first subway ride, we were tring t show her what it was like to ride during rush hour.

Photo 2

Our first site the Ghandi statue in Union Square

Photo 3

Suzanne, Hill, Hannah in front of the Wintergarden, Hill was demonstrating what the mannequins in the window looked like.

Photo 4

Everyone wimping out and wanting to go home and sleep. in front of another site 4 Times Square home of condenast

Photo 5

The winning team. They coined themselves the Roundabout group, they were a collection of friends and co-workers from Roundabout Theatre Company. Loren, Laura, Ethan, Bonnie, Jason Decker (our officiant) and Megan Loren's significant other.

5-4-08 Portraits

5-4-08

As I mentioned May 1st I did some shots for UT and I am so excited about the images I thought I'd share a couple with you. Have a look I hope you like them.

5-1-08 SUPER Busy Day

5-1-08

I bet you thought I forgot about you, alas I did not. I was out working like a maniac today, I had 2 publicity assignments for UT this morning and a shot for Texas Monthly this afternoon in San Antonio. So I'll be up till morning with my turn around for TM. I hope you had a wonderful day and we'll see you tomorrow.

---mel  "she"

4-30-08 Anniversary Issue

4-30-08

I'm getting a bit of a late start this morning, I was totally teased by a Robin Meade story this morning, so I stayed to watch and I fell asleep waiting for it and as far as I could tell it never ran...

So anyway, I promised in honor of Steve's and my anniversary I would show off some of the lovely images that Ryan Benyi shot for us on our special day. I could not have been happier with my wedding photography, in fact I couldn't have been happier with any of my wedding vendors

we had Dine by Design cater the event I can't remember the person who did our flowers, Austinites it matter to you she's in New York, but she was great. Our location was stunning it over looked the hudson river and lower tip of Manhattan and NJ. Breathtaking, right at sunset. You'll see that in just a sec. On out honeymoon and during the week after the wedding my husband and I recorded our memories on wave files to preserve their newness and now we're so glad we did. We get to hear about our wedding day as if it happened just that week. It really helps us rekindle the spirit of it. So last night we listened to parts of it, just out memories of our respective Bachelor and Bachelorette parties and Sunday night we'll listen to the rest our group bachelor/bachelorette party (A scavenger hunt around New York City) and the rehearsal dinner day and our wedding day. It still feel quite fresh especially with out memories to remind us. When we originally did it, we were going to type them out, then we thought well instead why don't record them then type them out, then after we listened to them, we think listening to out own voices say the words is was better. Especially when I leave the room and come back proclaiming CAKE!!! which we ate wedding cake for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for nearly a week after. Nice.

I've been holding out long enough, here are the pictures.

4-29-08 The Green Issue

4-29-08

Happy Anniversary Baby! I know you check it daily.

For everyone else I know I mention it often so I wanted to show you what all of the fuss was about. Those little tomatoes were grown from tiny seeds, now they are hardy 4 foot plants with little tomatoes arriving on their branches. After that is Sage and Thyme. Doesn't the sage have a lovely texture to it? After that is a pepper, I started this in my garden as a starter plant, and I also just moved it because the tomato plants are light hogs and the pepper plant was missing it necessary sunshine. After that are sweet peas there are new tiny flowers emerging on the vines, I assume to facilitate the growing pod. We'll see, it's all about the science.
Thanks for looking, tomorrow I'll show some picts of mine and Steve's wedding.
---mel "she"

4-28-08 Website

4-28-08
I have spoken with a few of you about the www.she-n-he.com website, promising that they would be live on Saturday, as it turns out that was not the case. It's close, I hear and I promise I will make a huge todoo announcement on here when we are live.
Please be patient, I know it'll be this week, hopefully sooner than later.
You'll be the first to know!
Thank you for your support.
---mel "she"

4-28-08 Life Raft Day

4-28-08

Life Raft Day is something that my husband and I coined while living in Brooklyn, New York. It's a day when you wake up and don't leave the bed,  the apartment is so small you can do most things you from the bed. We play like the floor is the sea and the bed is a safe place. If you must go to the facilities or get food, then you have to walk across furniture or clothes on the way, to stay safe.  The practice has changed a little since then. We live here in Austin now and our house is ginormous, compared to our iddy bitty apartment in NY. It's has been adapted but it's quite close to the original game.

When we have been working a lot and not spending enough time together, this is the perfect opportunity to reconnect and spend the whole day concentrating on each other, with the exception of the 2, 1 hour naps I had yesterday. I love naps, they are so refreshing. So we watched 3 movies and played some Wii, we just got it last week and haven't had enough time to so much as pick up the controllers, until yesterday. We did do the tiniest amount of work, Steve has been working on the pool now for a while and it was rainy and windy and he wanted to make sure the rain had no effect on the pool and because of the wind I had to better secure my tomato plants, as one of them broke off and I am concerned for my little guys. So we spent about 30 minutes doing our respective shore.

 That was it. We're reconnected now. It feels good. 

Tomorrow is our 2 year wedding anniversary, technically today is. Our officiant was not licensed in New York and couldn't perform our ceremony so we were wed at the Justice of the Peace the day before, 4/28/06. 

More fun anniversary news in the next few days. I thought I'd throw in some pictures from our wedding as well. Plus maybe some audio from our wedding memories wave files.

Take care, thanks for looking.

---mel "she"