10-22-08 Changes /  by Melanie Grizzel


10-22-08

So not much is really changing and still everything is changing. 
We've had plenty of time to be thinking about this though, we have been pregnant since April. So really we're used to being future parents but that future is fast approaching and then we will be present parents. We're due January 9th. Just 21 days before my birthday and 4 days after my mom's birthday and 14 days after Christmas. Close enough that presents have 2 meanings but too far to still have it off for Christmas break. Steve and I are thinking of having a tradition in our house that everyone in the family gets to have 2 birthdays preferably 6 months or so apart that way for the first time in my life I can have a pool party for my birthday. And my two best girlfriends July 28, and August 1 can have a happy birthday ice skating or skiing. I rather like my birthday and I'm not sure what day I'll pick but we have about 3 years to consider is as out son will get to choose his extra birthday first. And he probably isn't going to be cognizant enough of it until at least then, probably later, I mean he'll likely be brilliant but maybe not that brilliant by then.
Tomorrow, we are going to head to California for our baby's first shower. It will be all of Steve's family and Patty's friends in attendance, Aunt Janet and Cousin Kelsi are throwing the shower at Patty's house. All I know if Kelsi is in charge of games and the shower invite had a rubber duckie on it, so I have no idea what to expect, they throw quite a party so I imagine it's going to be lots of fun. Kelsi is just 21 this year and has an awesome sense of humor so she knows my favorite thing about a shower are the games, I've already heard about one game I am mad for, hopefully it passes Janet's "yuck" test. We'll see on Saturday.
We found out about 9 weeks ago that we are having a boy. Even the technician was a little taken aback about what a boy he is ;) we're so proud.   
Our second shower is coming up the next weekend in Austin November 2nd. To be honest it will be the first shower in my life I was able to wake up in my own house and get dressed at my own house and go from there. I have been such a transient in the past. This shower is being thrown by my my 2 best girlfriends Suzanne and Alyssa. Alyssa is coming from New York to help toss the festivities and I saw the invitation it was so adorable, a hand made number shaped like a tea cup. It's a tea party at Suzanne's house. She is getting recipes for tea sandwiches from Patty who is a foremost authority on the subject. So suspect we'll be having some good eats ;) Plus it's a tea party and I love tea. I love the girly nuances of tea. It's one of my favorite pass times. Thanks to Patty for the introduction.
On November 1 we are going to take our only baby birthing class. This does not pass my my yuck test.  But at least we'll be informed, then the following weekend we are going to visit the hospital for a tour so we know where to go should there be an emergency, fingers crossed that will NOT be the case.
We'll be having yet one more shower coming up at the end of November thrown by my sister Hill in the Dallas area, we still have a number of family friends in the area. Not really sure what her plan is. She never tells me, she picks a theme and runs with it. Steve and I have been a little obsessive about Monkeys these last few months, I imagine our baby is going to be rambunctious he certainly is in my belly ;) so I suspect there will be something to do with Monkeys. She is throwing the shower Thanksgiving weekend. I am so excited about Thanksgiving weekend anyway, it's that much closer to baby and we get to put up the tree and it's her first Thanksgiving in their new house, and she just got dining room furniture so I know she is super excited about breaking it in. 
My plan is to put up a few of my most favorite holiday recipes and shoot them first so you can see what their supposed to look like. Soon. When we get back from California... I hope.
Have a great day, and we'll add some pictures of the shower when we get back. Thanks for looking.
---mel

10-12-08 Jamie + Shaun engagement /  by Melanie Grizzel






10-12-08 Jamie + Shaun engagement.

My plan was to put pictures up of the entire 3 days of the Erin and Jason wedding festivities but I changed my mind. I shot the most adorable couple ever, ever on Saturday and decided to take a hiatus from the Lake Tahoe wedding coverage to share these images from Saturday.
These 2 are the couple that everyone wishes they were. Completely mad for each other. Their wedding is in March so I am looking forward to that. As, I'm sure, they are.
Thanks for looking.
---mel

10-11-08 The Rehearsal Dinner /  by Melanie Grizzel






Erin and Jason's rehearsal dinner at Wendy and Chuck's house on Lake Tahoe. 

1. Grandma Peggy Roberts in a rarely seen image with her eyes open ;)
2. The Groom Jason wearing his "Passion Beach" t-shirt constucted by their friend and photographer Joe Abreu. 
3. A group of Family and Friends who I just don't know, but they are a lively bunch.
4. Steve-o and his uncle Brian. weird how they kinda look alike wouldn't you say plus they share a birthday and a common sense of humor, there is never a dull moment with these 2 in the room.
5. Erin's aunts on her Chuck's side. I just met them that morning at the baby shower.
See you tomorrow with some shots from the wedding + I just shot an awesome couple I can't wait to show you their engagement portrait.
---mel

10-7-08 Lake Tahoe /  by Melanie Grizzel






10-7-08 Lake Tahoe

2 weeks ago Steve and I went to Lake Tahoe to celebrate the wedding of Steve's cousin Erin and the baby shower of Steve's cousin Eric. We flew into Reno (the biggest little city...something) we got to see the sites there in town and drove an hour to the North side of Lake Tahoe. I would like to tell you how beautiful it was but I was napping most of the way. We rented a house with my in-laws Mom (Patty) Dad (Jim) and Brother (Nolan.) It was on a canal branching from the Lake and only 2 houses down from Patty's sister Wendy's house, she happens to be the new grandma and the mother of the bride. We spent the whole weekend doing family things, starting with Saturday morning we through a baby shower for Stephanie (Steve's cousin's wife) and their son Elias Arlo Olesen. In the early evening there was a BBQ in honor of the upcoming wedding on Sunday. Sunday was the union of Erin and Jason at a resort on the South side of Lake Tahoe. So I am going to send pictures with all of the weekend for the next few days to catch you up.
Thanks for looking.
Baby Shower:
My husband's cousin Eric and his wife had a baby just 6 weeks ago and my mother-in-law wanted to shower them with gifts. Sadly The new momma was still recovering from what I understand to be not a pretty comfortable delivery, so instead she threw a baby shower for Eric complete with all of the family women, cake and games. Eric is not a small, timid guy he is rather large certainly sturdy guy, so watching him open gifts and hold baby things for the room to coo over was definitely a highlight of our weekend. He and his wife live in Idaho so my husband hasn't seen him in quite a while and I hadn't ever met him up until this day. Eric was such a great sport to be there and not make the ladies do it ;) Good job Eric.
1. My mother in law, even with borrowed dishes and several miles from home can create quite a table scape.
2. Barbara and Wendy assumably commiserating about being new grandmothers. Barbara in June and Wendy nearly 6 weeks ago.
3. Patty cutting into her now famous soufflé. Yummo!
4. Eric playing baby Bingo, sadly he did not win, too bad I imagine those Burt's Bees gift bags would have done him well ;)
5. Eric opening baby gifts among the wall of baby gifts.
Congratulations to Eric and Stephanie for your new addition.
---mel

10-3-08 Austin City Limits Festival /  by Melanie Grizzel






10-3-08 

Austin City Limits Festival is a giant festival lasting 3 days in Zilker Park Austin Texas. It spans quite a distance with it's 5 or so stages of big name bands playing. It's a claim to fame for Austin the self proclaimed "Music capital of the world." This year we covered it for The New York Times, here is a link to our coverage. As many of you know I am 7 months pregnant and getting more robust by the minute and obviously have to pee ALOT, so I spoke with the promoters, the lovely ladies of fresh and clean media and they gave me full access to the entire park including a shuttle trolly that ushers you from stage to stage. Plus since my bag is such a giant, they also gave me 2 of everything for my husband to join me as my assistant, to carry everything and help me switch lenses and what not. All in all it was glorious experience and I'm glad I got to share it with him. Here are some shots from the show. Enjoy.
In order of appearance on Saturday, Sharon Jones, Man Man, Eryka Badu, a typical "Texas" crowd shot, and Robert Plant of Plant/Krauss formerly of Led Zeppelin.
---mel

9-29-08 Maxwell House in New York /  by Melanie Grizzel




9-29-08

In August, I was sent to New York to shoot a national ad campaign for Maxwell House, the images have not yet run in their markets. Instead I thought I'd send you a couple of out takes.
The first one is a set to see where everything was landing in terms of spacing and whatnot.
The image consists of my art director (left) my agent Paula Gren (middle left) the world's greatest assistant Alyssa (middle right) and The world's husband Steve Howe (right.)
It was rough seas that day and we were only on the  boat for about 3 hours but I have never been so sick in my life. I took everything I could to combat it and I even wore pressure point bracelets and I still got so sick. There are a couple of pictures of me laying on the bow praying to make it off the boat alive, but I'll keep those to myself. I now understand that pregnant woman get worse sick than those who are not. I wish someone would have told me sooner ;)
Tomorrow we'll have shots from the feature for the New York Times. Austin City Limits festival.
The following 2 images are 2 different set-ups and we shot on a tiny yacht floating the Hudson River that day.

/  by Melanie Grizzel






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

9-26-08 No seriously where has the summer gone? /  by Melanie Grizzel











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? /  by Melanie Grizzel





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 /  by Melanie Grizzel






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 /  by Melanie Grizzel






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 /  by Melanie Grizzel






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 /  by Melanie Grizzel

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 /  by Melanie Grizzel






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 /  by Melanie Grizzel






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 /  by Melanie Grizzel



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"