On Tuesday, the first day of autumn, I took a photo road trip with my friend Stephanie who was in town from New Orleans and our friend Kendall who was our fabulous tour guide. We drove out to Kenosha Pass which is recommended as the best spot for fall pictures in Colorado. We had a lot of fun taking pictures and just being silly girls with no agenda. We had to take a fisheye self-portrait at every stop and the sun even came out for 30 seconds, just long enough to get a fun shadow portrait. And just as we were on our way back commenting how great it would be to find somewhere to grab a bite…low and behold we come across a huge hot dog off the highway! A Coney Island hot dog stand that is. Don’t ask me how that got there, but it was a perfect ending to a perfect drive. Oh, and if there is a Max & Jim out there contact me for a free photo shoot, my tree carving picture would make a great addition to a couples photo!

This past weekend I met up with Tatiana & Joaquin on Colfax St. for the start of their engagement session. Yes, I did say Colfax St., which does have a reputation for hookers and bums, but…it is secretly one of my favorite spots! Not for those reasons, but because of all the colors and unique shops, and great music venues! Anyway…we had a blast! Tatiana & Joaquin are both big photography fans, so I could tell they were really into the shoot. After Colfax St. we went to Denver City Park and finished off with some beautiful sunset photos. I played around with a couple of new effects during editing, so if you like it or not let me know what you think. Thank you Tatiana & Joaquin for being such great sports, I can’t wait for the wedding next October at the beautiful Blackstone Country Club!

OK, so I didn’t get them in this shot, but being a huge fan of the New Orleans’ band Dirty Dozen Brass Band, I had to grab a shot of this vintage Bluebird sign!

Some of you may have noticed a new logo popping up in certain places like my website & letterhead.  For the past few years I was naively under the impression that as an artist I could design my own website, logo, etc…Well, I finally caved in and went with a professionally made flash website (for my wedding section, still working on the site for my fine art, portraiture, & other photo work).  And I recently decided I also needed a professional designer to do a new logo to go with my new name.  I changed my business name from Nicole Marie Photography to take on my newly married name – Nicole Nichols Photography, & wanted to start fresh with all new marketing & design materials.  It was a fun process coming up with my new logo & I wanted to share the steps involved for those of you that may be curious.  And thank you so much Lena at Your KLMN for helping me with my logo!

Need a graphic designer? Contact Lena Lena Saparov at www.yourKLMN.com

Last week I took a birthday road trip with my husband that was full of adventures! I think every couple needs to take a road trip together every year and go back to the basics – camp out, talk to strangers, stop for sunsets, and play 20 questions! It’s good for the soul and good for the heart. Here are pictures from the first sunset on our trip where we stopped for a picnic dinner in Salt Lake City, Utah. Once you roll into town you can smell the salt in the air before you even see it! The views around Salt Lake are amazing and unique but the salt beds reminded me of the white beaches of the Florida panhandle, but without the water of course. The mountains in the background also made me think of the Colorado mountains with a covering of ice and snow. But no snow here, just salt, and lots of it!