The new website was officially dropped today at 12:00 noon Pacific Time. It's been nice knowing ya, old blog, but we gots to move on. Amigos, friends, countrymen, paisanos, lend me your ears, and rev up your RSS readers. This blog won't be updated anymore, go to the new one please, it's much better for the eyes and your mouse. Don't forget about the contest, tell your friends about the new site and win some free stuff.

GO THE NEW WEBSITE NOW!

If you have checked in recently, you know about the new website launch tomorrow. To kick things off, I'm having a contest where you actually win some cool stuff that's not from the Dollar Tree. There will be 3 winners. The goal is to basically have as many of your friends to go to the website and contact me using the form in the Video Gallery. I have a brand new gallery that shows off all of my video work. To get there, you just go to the gallery section and choose "video" -- it's that easy. There will be a contact form at the bottom of the gallery. Your friends will need to enter their name and e-mail address, and in the message section, they need to type in your name, that way I can tally up who gets the most friends to go to the site. Make sure they contact me through the video contact form. If they use any other contact form in the website, their entry won't count towards your name. Sounds easy enough right? Prizes go to the top 3 people mentioned by their friends (only one entry towards your name will be counted per freind/family member):

• 1ST PLACE: Gift Certificate for a Basic Session and a print credit of $250 (total value of $600).
• 2ND PLACE: $100 gift certificate towards a portrait session/prints.
• 3RD PLACE: $50 gift certificate towards a portrait session/prints.

The contest starts tomorrow as soon as the new website is live and ends on Friday, August 7th @ 11:59 pm. The winners will be announced on the new website on Monday, August 10th. That means you have 3 days to get your friends to contact me and get it counted on your behalf. So, rev up your contacts list and start accepting all those Facebook friend requests you've been ignoring, you're gonna need it!

Disclaimer: Only one entry per person. Prizes cannot be redeemed for cash. Contact me for more details.

• BRAND NEW WEBSITE - marianofriginal.com has been going through a major facelift behind the scenes. I have a brand new website that will be go live this Wednesday, August 5th. Same ol' address, just a different way to experience my artwork. I'm also introducing a new video section for all you film-lovers. All the short films that I've been working on will be featured in that new section. To kick off the brand new site, I'm holding a contest. Check back tomorrow for all the contest details. There are some cool prizes worth more than a frappucino, so make sure you check it out.
• BRAND NEW PORTRAIT EVENT DATES - I'm announcing two new dates for the Fall season, one in September, and one in October. Check out the new site on Wednesday to get the exact dates and register.
• WINTER CAMP SHOOTY IS BACK - Grab your camera and get ready to learn some stuff. I'll be holding another episode of Camp Shooty in January. Space is extremely limited, so make sure to come back and sign up on Wednesday when registration officially opens up.

Here's a frame from Jessica & Billy's engagement session last weekend. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but there's something new coming... like soon, like this week. So I'll post more from this session after we get that out of the way ;) Stay tuned!