Happy Halloweenie...

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy Halloween. I will be taking pictures later this evening of Mr. Aiden.

In the meantime, my best friend Stacy sent this to me and I thought I would share. It's fun

Cat Bowling

Have a spookrific day (oh gosh I'm a dork)

Day at the Park

Yesterday Auntie Stacie and Uncle Tony took Aiden to the park to play. I came along for a few minutes to snap some shots. It felt like fall in the air. It was a nice change. I love the crisp air this time of year.

Wedding with Masen

On Friday I was privileged to shoot with my friend Masen
The ceremony took place at a beautiful Catholic Church in Del Cerro and the reception was at The Admiral Baker Club.
The bride and groom were so wonderful to work with. Thank you for letting me shoot with you again Masen. It's always a pleasure!

The Gallardo Family

Last weekend, while I was in the Bay Area, I had the pleasure of photographing fellower photographer and blogger Deanna and her family. Deanna lives in Sacramento but was going to be in San Francisco for the Nike Women's Marathon. We arranged a time to take pictures.
What a wonderful family. Their little girl was so adorable. She didn't really want to look at the camera too much, let alone smile. I got a few shots of her though.

Thanks so much for asking me to take your pictures Dee!
Lots of Love to you all xoxo









-Remember when I said my hyperlink didn't work? Well, I figured out it works on Firefox. I was using Safari and it didn't work. So now it works.
Have a great day everyone.
**the fires are getting better here. They have them more under control, thank goodness!

Mmmmm

I don't know how many times Aiden said, "Mmmm" on Monday. He is so funny.
Despite the horrible fires here, we celebrated Aiden's birthday at my favorite restaurant Nicolosi's.
My grandparents helped celebrate with us. Aiden got to taste pizza and ice cream for the first time.
He wasn't quite sure about the candle, but he sure did like the ice cream.




Thank you to everyone that wished him a Happy Birthday. We had a great day. We will be throwing him a party next month when my mom comes to visit.

***On a sidenote, the topic for the photo challenge is Magazine Inspiration. It still isn't too late to join if you want. Send me an email at meli@melissakoehlerphotography.com and I will send you the details.

Have a great day.

Fires

We are ok. Hopefully the can get the fires under control soon. Please pray for Southern California.
We know friends that have been evacuated due to the fires. It's so scary.
I will keep you all updated.
Thank you for you prayers and concerns.
Hugs
-Missi

One

It's hard to believe that one year ago today my baby was born. Time really has flown by. Aiden has brought me so much joy. I could have never imagined that loving him could make me a better person. I truly enjoy being his mommy.

Here are pictures from last year. I know that August is missing. I'm not sure where pictures are :(
Please don't look at the pictures technically, they are just to document my baby's first year. Some of you have been able to see him grow up through the blog. Thank you for taking the time to comment on his pictures. It mean so much to me!

























-Happy 1st Birthday Aiden. I love you!!! xoxo

I love this family



Here is the original



-Then some fun with it.


Amber, Aaron and Abbey are so wonderful. Amber is my photography buddy here in San Diego. She will be doing our family shots here very soon.
Hugs to you guys!!!
xoxo

Guilty Pleasure

I love this drink from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I don't drink coffee, this drink is soooo good. Yum!

-I joined Facebook. I like it much better than myspace. I am having fun on it. Come look me up on Facebook and add me as your friend.

-I sent out the email for the photo contest. I had a lot of people say they were interested, but only a handful of people say they wanted to actually participate. If you would like to join it, let me know, I will send you the email.

Have a great day everyone!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the last day to email me and let me know if you want to participate in the photo challenge. It is also the last day to vote. So, if you want to participate let me know.

Peek

He was cranky when I took this. I know it isn't the best picture technically but I liked the composition of it.




-So, I joined the myspace world. I honestly don' have a clue what to do with it. My page looks so sad. If any of you myspace gurus out there want to help me out I would appreciate it.

:)

Photo Challenge

I think I have 15 people including myself, that want to do the photo challenge.
If you are serious about doing this challenge I need you to email me directly at
meli@melissakoehlerphotography.com
I think that a gift card to B & H photo would be most appropriate. I went on their website and the smallest amount to purchase is $20. Is this ok with everyone? If you think it should be a smaller amount and to somewhere else email me and let me know.
Remember, the poll for what the topic should be ends on Wednesday and so does the sign up to participate in the Challenge.

Once I receive confirmation from everyone that is participating, I will send out an email to everyone with all the details.

Off to go watch the Chargers game. GO CHARGERS!!!

Bates Nut Farm

Today we went to Bates Nut Farm with our friends. The weather almost made us stay home. I am so glad we went.
These are a few pictures of Aiden at the Farm.
He seemed to really enjoy the pumpkins.









-All pictures taken with my 5D and 24-70 2.8 lens. SOOC except for sharpening.
Love my camera!!!

Handsome boy

This is SOOC (straight out of camera). Nothing done to it.
I am just checking to see if my new settings work :)

Vote!

I have a good response to the Photo Challenge. Please vote for what you would like the first challenge to be. If you have an idea please put it in the "other" section.






My thoughts for the Challenge are that we would do it once a month. I think we should try one month and plan from there.

-To make the Challenge more interesting, I was thinking that the winner would receive a gift card to I-Tunes, Coffee Bean Tea Leaf, B&H, etc. If you participate in the challenge you would be responsible for contributing to the winnings. We would choose the gift card location and the amount. Nothing fancy maybe $5-10. If we have a lot of contestants it could be a decent amount.
After the challenge is over, you would email me your entry. I would then post them on my blog for people to vote for their winner.
-I am open to changing any of these rules, so if you have an opinion let me know.

-If you want to "play" you must respond by Wednesday Oct 17.

This should be fun :)

Photo Challenge

I have been thinking about this idea for a while now.
I would love to do a photo challenge. I don't know if it should be once a week, twice a month or once a month.




I am interested to see how many people would want to do this. You don't have to be a professional photographer to participate. It would be an exercise to help you step outside of your creative box and look at things differently.

-So, who would be interested in doing this with me? Please write your thoughts on how often we should do these. We could gather ideas for challenges and then post our pictures. I would really like if people could put all the technical info with their pictures too.

-What do you all think?

The Wedding Party Bridal Show

Well, after many hours of planning for this bridal show the day arrived. This past Sunday was The Wedding Party Bridal Show at the Hyatt Regency in La Jolla. It was unlike any bridal show I had been to. It was organized beautifully and felt very boutiquish (if that's even a word).
My best friend Stacy and her mom Kathy helped me "man" the booth. I could not have done this without Stacy. She has been such a support and help through this entire process. She is a genius with creative design and floral arrangements. I am going to post on her floral arrangements for the show soon. I have to premise by saying that I had no choice in the table cloths. The theme of the show was "That's Amore" so they had specific colors. Just in case you were wondering why the orange was so bright :)


Stacy had the brilliant idea of setting up some of my cards in coffee beans. I loved it. Didn't it look great?


-Here are Kathy, me and Stacy in front of the booth. We all had matching outfits on. We thought it would look better. It did attract more attention that way :)


-One of the belly bar tables with one of my albums, business cards (in coffee beans) and a floral arrangement



-A pic of my promo cards on the back table (also in coffee beans)



-The final product. You can see the flowers on the sides. I can't tell you how many brides wanted Stacy to do their flowers.


We had a great time! We met so many wonderful people. I am looking forward to see what 2008 has in store :)
Hugs to you all