MY Photography

Mamafest - May 7th!

I'm going to be displaying my portraits at Mamafest on May 7th at Temple Solel in Cardiff by the Sea. There will be many vendors and informational talks for all moms. Come on down and say hello!

Presents

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7TH 5:30 - 9:30 P.M. About The Event Celebrate motherhood at the ultimate Mom's Night Out. This is a special night for moms at any stage. It's a fun filled evening to benefit San Diego's Postpartum Health Alliance.... Mommy Marketplace Sessions On Motherhood LUNAFEST Raffle Refreshments A GREAT EVENING... Mommy Marketplace - Great shopping from clothes to jewelery to baby goods LUNAFEST - Film Festival by, about and for motherhood Mommy Speaker Sessions - From Sex to sleep, we've got you covered! Refreshments & Raffle You can choose to do it all or to just relax with friends. LUNAFEST                      LUNAFEST is a national traveling festival of short films by...for...about women. LUNAFEST runs from October-March, in that time it is shown by more than 100 venues nationwide and is seen by over 20,000 viewers, each ticket sold raises money for Breast Cancer Fund and local nonprofit organizations. To find out how you can support your local nonprofit and bring award-winning independent films to your community, please visit lunafest.org. REGISTER ONLINE NOW $20 Pre-registered $25 Day of Event About Postpartum Health Alliance PHA is a non-profit, San Diego based organization dedicated to raising awareness about postpartum depression and related disorders and providing treatment referrals to women who are struggling with them. PHA Website Location Temple Solel, 3575 Manchester Avenue    Cardiff By The Sea, CA 92007 Special Thanks To...

Stroller Strides - vendor of the month!

A big thank you to the San Marcos Stroller Strides group for honoring me with being the vendor of the month!  Dana Pustinger puts a lot of energy and effort towards keeping North County mommies fit while taking their babies for a high energy stroll at Walnut Grove Park.  I thought it was a fabulous idea for keeping new mommies fit!  Check out their site for upcoming classes.

Network savvy Dana added another component to her enterprise by allowing mompreneurs or womanpreneurs to share their business for a month to the moms in her Stroller Strides group.  I thought this was such a great idea!  As a thank you I am offering a special gift to every mommy from Dana's group who completes a session with me.  The session must be booked in the month of May in order to receive the complimentary gift at the ordering session, but the session can be scheduled for later in the year. 

Thanks again for letting me showcase my biz yesterday, ladies!

San Elijo Hills Middle School - Golf Tournament

This past weekend I helped sponsor a Golf Tournament fundraiser for our local middle school. The event was organized by my friends TK and Karen Smith from the Fountain Media Group and they pulled it off flawlessly!  It was a good opportunity for me to meet new neighbors, spend a day in the sun avoiding golf balls (ha!), and watch the live auction in action! 

The winning team was the Houston Team.  Cheers! Congratulations to all the winners - especially Closest to the Pin which was sponsored by Marlo Yoshimoto Photography!  You can view more photos here on the tournament website.

Online galleries temporarily on hold!

I think I contacted all those who are affected, but just in case I'll put a global message out here too.  I just canceled my old online gallery host, so I've taken the form off this site.  This means that all old galleries have been purged.

On the flip side, I have been continuing to create new online galleries for recent clients and those who just missed ordering at the transition. These will be posted online with my new website, which is due to go live any day now.  Once this is up and running, I will contact all of you with your new log in information.

The website will have the bare minimum, but it's main purpose for the short term is to view those galleries!  I am very close to having my portfolio and all my business information complete, so that will be up soon after.

Stay tuned!

Watch out mom and dad . . .

Meet Miss T! She's all-around athletic, shy, and has some great clothes!  I think the most fun I have been experiencing with this young adult promo is picking out what to wear.  It's like going shopping and dressing up your model.  Fun stuff!

I had a hard time choosing which images to post from this session.  Lovely Miss T said she never looks good in photos . . . well I beg to differ!  Did you see that gorgeous green dress yet?  We had a lot of fun running around for hours, and I wish I could just post them all!  Thanks for a great session, T!

:: an amazing tribute ::

Those who know me well know I won't discuss politics, religion, or controversial subjects unless it comes up naturally or people who I am close to ask me. Regardless of what yours or my stance is on the war in Iraq, I'm sure you would agree that our military deserves much recognition and support.  For those who have fallen, I have wondered what kind of tribute has been given.  Those families have suffered the most from the war and our heroes should be remembered.

I just finished viewing one of the most amazing tributes I've seen given to a fallen hero for his family.  I was in tears at the end of the slideshow and want to share it with you.  This fallen hero's tribute was wonderfully captured and artistically designed by a fellow photographer (who I am a huge fan of), Matt Nicolosi.  Please click the link below . .

:: thank you Dustin Jackson ::

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:: blog reorganization ::

You might have noticed that I changed a few things around in the blog today. 

The online gallery form has been removed.  I will be temporarily be using password protected albums for upcoming galleries until my formal website is out.  I cancelled my old vendor after a year, and can't wait until I can get the new site up!  If you have any orders you would like to place, please send me an email with your order for now!

My email link has been moved to the top of the left hand column because people were having a hard time finding it. Hopefully this will make it more visible.

Also added in the left hand column is a list of product clients that I have or currently am working with.  I would like to show off their great products!  Some clients used my photos for printed brochures, and others for website photos.  I'll showcase the publications in a future post as soon as I receive a copy of them.  For website clients, I will announce here when their website is complete with formatting and uploading of new images! 

Moved my announcement and card templates to the bottom of the right hand column.  I will highlight 2008 holiday templates when the time comes.  All 2008 clients will be able to use an image from their sessions to use towards their holiday cards this year!  Be sure to book your portrait sessions early to beat the rush.  All of my Saturdays through July are already booked up!

Last thing . . . I now have a "categories" list on the right hand side.  If you are interested in only looking at MYP news, click on that link to sort only the model calls, new and up coming promos, updates for MYP, etc.   If you are interested in only seeing baby and maternity images, click on the baby/maternity link, and it will filter all other posts out.

I'm striving to make it as easy as possible to navigate around this site, so any suggestions would be great too!

:: tapas anyone? ::

As anyone who knows me, I am a very adventurous eater.  I love experiencing different cultures by tasting the wide pallette of flavors and spices out there!  (although I'm not a fan of extremely hot chile spices, I love wasabi mustard hot, and love spicy in the terms of flavorful spicy . . . ).  I've decided to write about more of my food adventures as they come up, since San Diego is filled with many different amazing eateries!  If you have any suggestions on great places to try out anywhere in San Diego county, please by all means leave a comment here or email me!! I would love to try them all eventually :-D

I got off the phone after an hour and half chat with my girlfriend today (does that length of time still constitute a chat?).  She reminded me of this past weekend when we all went out for happy hour.  We had been talking about going to tapas for a long time prior, and she finally introduced me to one of her favorite stomping grounds, Costa Brava in Pacific Beach.  If you aren't familiar with tapas, they are small plates of Spanish food that you eat as you enjoy the company of friends.  Basically they are appetizer sized portions where you can try many different bites of flavor instead of ordering an entire meal of one type of food.  The selection there was a mix of authentic Spanish tapas and of course your Americanized trendy versions.  I tried one authentic plate - tortilla espanola - a spanish potato omelet with onion and egg.  It was on the bland side, but still had a lot of flavor.  It was a nice addition to the other foods we tried.  The patatas a la brava - spicy potatos - weren't as spicy as I thought they would be, but they were so flavorful. This is my friend's favorite dish there (and now my husband's too).  They also had a special which was a skewered filet mignon - oh that was pure heaven!  We had over 10 dishes that we shared and a pitcher of sangria.  Not a bad way to spend a Saturday night!!  I only wish I had brought my camera along.  Next time, next time . ..   

:: Roca, the wonderdog! ::

I haven't posted too many personal stories on my blog, but I have to write about something my dog, Roca, did this morning.  She just made my day!

After my husband had already left for work, I woke up to Roca licking my foot as it poked out from under the covers.  Apparently she had been waiting patiently for me to wake up - and I vaguely remember her plopping down hard on the ground sighing loudly at one point in my sleep. Both of my dogs (Roca and Oreo) are very much house dogs and are not allowed on the furniture, so I'm guessing she was frustrated that she wasn't getting the attention she wanted because I was out of reach until she saw my foot.  I started moving my foot in response to the licking, and she suddenly got super excited like she wanted to play! She kept nudging my foot, then proceeded to make really quiet barking noises as if she didn't want to wake me, but did LOL.

So once I sat up, her tail went 2000 miles per hour and she started bouncing up and down with her front paws. As I walked to the center of the room she usually plops down in the middle while I go take a shower, but instead she pointed at the door then looked at me and back to the door. ". . .. ok . .. I'll go that way, what do you want to show me Lassie?" :D  She stopped at the top of the stairs and did the same thing - tail going 2000 miles a min in the meantime. "Fine, let's go downstairs." She peels out downstairs and makes a sharp left towards the kitchen. "hmmmm . .. . ok I get it you have to go outside?" Roca then opened the shutters with her nose and squeezed her way in between the doors, and then pointed at the sliding door. As I got closer, what did I see? POOR OREO had been left outside when my husband let them out that morning more than an hour ago LOL!!! Our backyard hasn't been landscaped yet, so we don't usually let them stay out back that long due to the dust and weeds.  Oreo had missed the cue to come back into the house, and my husband swore he saw her in the house. I let her back in and man were the two of them so happy that I GOT it!!

It always amazes me how smart animals can be - how they can adapt to routines and know when something is off.  But the most amazing part is the attempt to communicate with you to show you what is wrong.  I've had a big smile on my face all morning because of this!  Be sure to hug your pets for me today!! :)

Ah to be young again . . .

These two girls were great fun to photograph.  K & L are cousins, and L was down in San Diego visiting for Spring Break so we added her to K's shoot.  We talked about their recent adventures shopping, prom, guys, future dreams . . . it almost made me wish I was in high school again!  What grabbed me the most was their similar, yet admirable, goal of wanting to work in a neonatal ward some day.  Right now K works as a steady babysitter for a family with three young  children.  One of them is the child with special needs whom I highlighted in a previous post.  Both of these girls have a huge heart and big dreams, so I definitely wanted to do something special in return!  Enjoy their shoot!