MRP on Facebook

In my many years of wisdom and experience, I have found these to be the 3 stages of facebooking:

1) Thinking it's totally dumb and you'll never get on it - who even knows what it really is anyway.
2) Recognizing it's kind of cool and masquerading by using someone else's name and password.
3) Total abandonment of your reservations and joining and loving it.

For some reason, I've just never gotten into MySpace; rather Facebook is my drug of choice. It does have some semi-addicting tendencies but overall it's been a really fun way for me to keep up with friends all over the country.

And now I have an Artist Page on Facebook! I'm still figuring out everything that I'm going to do with it but for now, I'm posting photos, it has a link to this blog, you can leave a comment or start a discussion, etc., etc. The very fun thing is that you can sign up to be a fan of me or other artists. Be sure to stop by and check it out here or by clicking on the link over there to the right! Thanks for being a fan - you guys are great!

Blog Update

Well, some of you may have noticed that things look a little different around here! Over the weekend we spent some time updating the blog, and by "we" spent time "updating", I mean that Adam gave up a large portion of his Saturday to completely rebuild it from scratch.

The main goal was to finally get comments enabled so you guys can leave and thoughts, comments, questions and make this more of a conversation rather than a monologue. We also added some new categories over there on the right so you can view old entries by category.

I know these are minor changes but I'm really excited about it and am hoping to be blogging lots in the coming weeks and months so be sure to RSS me, check back often, and add a link to us on your own blog. I'm excited to hear from you guys!!

Things are always a little slower in the winter which is a much-needed break for me! I'm trying to catch up on my marketing, editing, and a bunch of personal projects that always get shoved to the end of my to-do list. Right now I'm FINALLY editing some shots I took of one of my many wonderful brothers-in-law: Matthew. More to come about these once I finish working on them but I'll leave you with one quick shot so you don't go photo-less today!

Happy Wednesday!

Marketa Irglova on Dreaming

Confession: I'm not a huge movie person. Which is a little ironic since it's Adam's passion.

But I still love the Oscars and love thinking about what I would wear if I got to go! This year, I had very little emotional investment in any of the categories except for one - I really really wanted Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova to win best original song for "Falling Slowly" from Once. It's one of those slow character-driven films which I totally have a soft spot for, and after we watched the Behind the Scenes about how the movie was made, and how the two leads were cast, I was 100% sold.


Anyway, to bring this back to relevance, I was thrilled when they brought Marketa back out to give her speech after she originally got cut off and what she said really struck a chord with me:

"No matter how far out your dreams are, it is possible . . . Fair play* to those who dare to dream and don't give up."

I know it's not a new concept . . . follow your dreams - maybe it's more convincing when spoken with a Czech accent, but for some reason it just really gripped my heart. I YouTube'd her acceptance speech just to hear it again first thing today.

I whole-heartedly believe everything that she says and feel so overwhelmingly blessed to wake up everyday with the chance to pursue this dream of mine. Thanks for coming along on the journey!



* I asked my British friend Katie to explain what "fair play" means. She says: "It's difficult to explain but generally means 'good on you' or 'nice one'." I'm going to try to use this in a sentence today!

Valentine's Day shoot - Annie and Jill

I know, I know - I'm a little bit late! But I wanted to show a few images from a shoot that we did for Valentine's Day!

My friend Sarah asked me to come over and take some shots of her girls Annie....


...and Jill....


... as a surprise for their daddy, Daren. What a great Valentine's Day present and I think we managed to pull off the surprise!!

The girls were precious in their V-Day pink and were so sweet together:


And of course I had to grab at least a few of the three girls together:



This is my favorite shot of Annie - she has those dark piercing eyes - beautiful! Watch out boys!



Sarah used this shot for a Valentine's card - what a great idea!


I hope that you all had a great Valentine's Day!! Not to be too cheesy but I'll close with a self portrait of me and Adam (everybody say awwwww) from last year on a trip to North Carolina. Thanks for being my Valentine!

Ashley & Cole

Last week, we had a super fun night hanging out with Ashley and Cole at Balboa Peninsula. I love doing engagement shoots at locations that are personal to each couple, so the Peninsula was perfect since Cole lives there now. There are so many great shooting locations - the pier, the beach, the Fun Zone - we could have gone on for several hours, I think! Fortunately the night ended with an amazing sunset right as we arrived back at the beach. We can't wait for their wedding in just a few weeks in Temecula - it's going to be here before we know it! Here are some of my favorites - enjoy!! As usual, I had such a hard time narrowing it down!!

On the pier:



In the fun zone!!



Ashley's amazing ring! Cole designed it himself - it's beautiful!

On the beach at sunset - what a great night!

Let there be music!

Well, after months of silence, I've finally added an amazing song to my website. It's by a friend of mine - ok, friend might be a little bit of a stretch - he's really a friend of a friend who I've met a few times: Andy Davis.

I've followed Andy's music for several years now since he was in school with Adam at Belmont University in Nashville (Go Bruins!) up until now. Andy just released a new album Let the Woman that's available exclusively at Barnes and Noble and also on iTunes. Be sure to grab it one of those two places - it's amazing! The B&N here in Cali had a whole little display for him on the counter and I got so excited to see it - I think the guy working there must have thought I was a little crazy! Anyway, I love Andy's style - super mellow and acoustic. His writing style is so powerful - there's just something about his music that's super poignant for me.

I've always been a music lover. There's something about music that can take a feeling, an experience, a story - and capture it in something a little more tangible. I hope that my photography can do the same thing.

So enjoy the new addition to the website and go to iTunes and get Andy's latest album!

The Armstrong Family

Oh - as usual, I'm embarrassed by how far behind I am on blogging as I still have shoots from November that I haven't gotten to! Ah!


Here's a precious one with a sweet little family that I instantly loved! We spent the afternoon with the Armstrongs at their precious little home and had so much fun with the boys! Hunter, the older boy, instantly reached out to hug me as soon as I walked in the door - how can you not love that? He has such a happy and affectionate personlity! What a sweet boy!



Caroline definitely has her hands full (literally and figuratively) with these two little ones!

I don't see how she does it. Here's a couple of shots of the baby, Drake. This first one cracks me up! He made that funny face at just the right second!




I couldn't believe how laid back and relaxed Caroline was! It's obvious that she's a great mom - it was cool to see her interacting with her two boys.




Thanks for a fun afternoon! It was great hanging out with you guys!