A Year in Photos

2010 has been a crazy year for us. Our first complete year in business. A move into a new downtown studio and gallery. So many new clients and friends. As we are getting ready today to shoot our last wedding of 2010 tonight (and our first wedding of 2011 10 hours after that!) we are looking back on everything we've accomplished together this year.Here's a few of the things we did this year...

We shot 33 weddings,
40 engagement sessions,
22 portrait sessions,
9 Studio Booths,
8 events and private functions.
We shot our first baby of a former bride just a few weeks ago :)

And we learned...

A backyard wedding can be just as good as a $100,000 wedding,
Being a wedding photographer is very much a lifestyle rather than just a business,
and there has to be emotion behind the lens to show the emotion in front of it.

So here's to a fabulous year and hopefully another equally fabulous one in 2011!

Real Wedding: Siobhan + Mike! Wedding at Sheraton Suites Tampa

Siobhan and Mike tied the knot in July and our very good mutual friend, Sam, officiate. I absolutely love when a couple has someone close to them perform the ceremony. It is so much more personal than having someone you don't know marry you. Siobhan and Mike's wedding was filled with fun colors, music (the bridal party danced down the aisle following the ceremony) and they also included a Studio Booth in their festivities.




Our favorite feature of the Sheraton Suites Tampa is the amazing atrium in the middle of the hotel. Siobhan entered the ceremony from the glass elevator that carried her from the top floor down to the aisle where Mike was waiting for her.







I'll be posting the Studio Booth pics next, so stay tuned!

The Ladies of Elan Event Studio | Tampa Portrait Photography

Elan Event Studio is a full service Tampa Bay event planning and design studio. We have worked with them many times at events including The Gasparilla International Fim Festival and our own grand opening party. We were so honored to do this shoot for them for their new website.

Here's Monica, Owner and Senior Planner

And Erica, Associate Planner






Elan Event Studio is on our vendor list of highly recommended professionals and we love working with them!

Real Wedding: Pamela + Dennis Palm Beach, FL

Pam and Dennis were married back in June in my hometown of Boynton Beach, FL. Our Dad's grew up together, so this was a really fun wedding to attend because along with her family, I knew many of the guests. )Her parents came all the way over to St. Pete to watch Evan and I tie the knot 3 years ago). My Dad and grandfather both attended this wedding, so it was really fun to have them watch Evan and I in action. Pam looked absolutely stunning and the first bridal portrait is on a lot of our marketing materials now. It's so funny how quick, rushed photo ops can sometimes come out to be "the" picture of the day.



















I got my Dad to dance with me at some point during the evening which always really more of a train wreck. Even Evan and I got a chance to squeeze in a few minutes of dancing which is the best when we can make it happen :)

Sneak Peek: Laura & Randy's Southern Wedding

I have quite a few weddings to post, so to get you and myself excited for what's to come, I wanted to share an image from the wedding we shot on my birthday a few weeks ago up in The Villages, FL.

Choosing just one image to share is soooo hard. Laura allotted over 2 hours for portraits and we got some truly amazing images that will soon be canvases in our studio :) The colors in their portraits are so incredible... but I'll leave that for their full post. For now, this black and white image conveys a little bit of mystery to me.

Happy Halloween!

We got some cute entries for our Halloween contest, thanks to everyone who sent in photos! Congratulations to Krystal, who is getting married in February for her winning entry of her as a Lion Tamer! Here's the photo she sent in below:



Love the action of her "taming" her dog Kamikaze. We also want to show an honorable mention of one of our grooms, Dave, for his rockin' photo as well.



This was fun, so we will definitely do some more contests in the future. Krystal- don't forget to email me what photo you want printed for your canvas :) Now that we showed you some of your photos, here are our costumes. Now, fair warning, we are dorks. If you didn't know that and already signed us, too late.



I was a cook, and Evan was....



....Marty McFly! So, yeah. I warned you. We can go a little overboard. I mentioned we also have a lot of fun carving our pumpkins so here is a compilation of the 3 we did this year, including my Jaws pumpkin, Evan's scary face, and the Rebel Alliance symbol which I made for Evan.



Have a Happy Halloween everyone, and this week we have a ton of blog posts to share, so stay tuned!

Contest Time!

by Evan and Caroline



As the weather is cooling, one of our favorite holidays approaches- Halloween! Evan and I tend to put a lot of thought into our costumes as well as carving our pumpkin. So, we thought it would be a fun to have a contest for all of our current clients to share the spirit with us. The winning couple will receive an 11 x 14" metallic thin wrap (like the ones hanging in the studio part of our office).

So, what do you have to do? From now until October 28th at midnight, submit a picture of your self in your Halloween costume to us via e-mail. Now, we know you all aren't photographers- that's why you're our clients right? So, we won't be judging you on how good the picture is. The things we will be judging you on are:

1. Creativity of costume. It can be store bought items put together or home made, we want it to be clever though and reflect your personality. We want to be able to say, "oh that's so Karen". And since you know us so well, you know you'll get extra points for humor.

2. Context of the photograph. We're not looking at composition or anything like that. But we want you to pose yourself in the picture in a way that relates to the costume. If you're a lion, don't stand up and smile at the camera, get your butt down in the grass and hunt for prey. Get it?

That's all! This is for all our current clients, and on Halloween we'll post the winner along with us in OUR costumes. Have fun, and we can't wait to start seeing your submissions!

Featured on My Kate Parker Wedding Blog and The Man Registry!

We had a photo from Christina & Matt's wedding recently featured on the My Kate Parker Wedding Blog ! They did an inspiration board on wedding lawn games so the shot we got of the bridal party playing croquet was a hole in one. I read this blog regularly and they always feature such beautiful photography, so we were thrilled to be included in this post!



Then in addition, The Man Registry listed the MyKPW inspiration board on their Best of the Web post and chose our photo to feature!



Thanks so much to these sites for featuring our everyday work!

New Video Collection: Love Stories

by Evan

There are a limited number of words to describe the highest levels of excitement. That said, I am super stoked to announce our new product "Love Story" videos. Rick and Loren's engagement session got Evan-ized this past weekend as we added video to their session. Using our second Nikon D300s, we shot HD footage to an awesome to song by the Plain White T's called "Rhythm of Love" (which I highly recommend downloading, see the link below). The Plain White T's hold a special place in our hearts as "Hey There, Delilah" is the song that Caroline walked down the aisle to. The Love Story product is sort of a music video but it's not so much about the music as it is about the couple. When the camera started rolling, Loren and Rick were free to just be goofy and in love. One thing we can't wait to try out is using a local musician to write an original song for each couple! Let us know what you think of that idea or if you know any musicians that would like to participate. If you'd like to know more about the Love Story videos, give us a call or e-mail and we'll tell you all about it. Check out Loren and Rick's Love Story below.

Rick and Loren Love Story from CSE Photography on Vimeo.

Download this awesome Plain White T's song here.

New Postcards

Our new pricing is effective today!

Teenagers vs. The Studio Booth!

Our Studio Booth is certainly most popular at weddings and we have also done it at many charity events over the past year and a half. The Studio Booth is still never tame. But the thought of controlling 40+ teenagers in the booth made me a little nervous and at the same time excited to see how it would differ from a typical Studio Booth at a wedding. So after mentally preparing myself during the hours leading up to it- I opened the booth at Victoria's Sweet 16 party and what I found was... well a picture is worth a thousand words right?

Here's the Birthday Girl, Victoria, vogue-ing it out for me in the booth













Special thanks to DJ Cory Baron from Grant Hemond & Associates who is always a pleasure to work with and really made the party what is was.


So you can see, that the kids were totally creative and fun once they got a little comfortable with the idea. The real surprise was how much the adults at the party were partaking in the Booth festivities. Or maybe it's not so much of a surprise since the adults do have cocktails to help get their creative juices flowing? Either way, this was a really fun group, and a totally deserving sixteen year old. Happy Birthday again to Victoria!

Catering and Linens: Orange Blossom Catering
Floral Arrangements by J. Baldwin (727-360-2195)
Venue: Bayanihan Arts & Events Center
DJ: Cory B. from Grant Hemond & Associates
Cake: A Better Cheesecake
Photography & Videography: Us of course!

Event Photography Lighting- Taking it up a notch

By Evan

As promised, I am writing today to comment on some of the more technical features of what we do. We have always prided ourselves in our reception photography, making an effort to not just document the event but have exciting, fun, colorful "portraits" of our clients and their guests partying through the night. Achieving truly high end reception photography is about much more than knowing how to take a good picture. Rather, it becomes a challenge of not only having the proper equipment, but knowing how to use it. We recently upgraded our lighting arsenal and decided the break the new members of the family in at a sweet 16 party this past weekend. We were so pleased with the results, there was no way we couldn't blog about it. See some of our favorites below with some notes on just what it was about the lighting and photography that made the shot special.









The use of multiple lights changes everything. More fill, better color and perhaps most importantly, the addition of more lights than just the one mounted on the camera adds the perception of studio lighting- something you don't expect at a party. In addition, the use of our low aperture lens collection allows us to capture a lot of movement while allowing as much light in as possible. Here, we are using a combination of our Tokina 11-16mm 2.8 and my personal favorite; our Nikon 50mm 1.8.



In the photo above, my second light has been strategically placed next to the DJ booth, where a cloud of mist fills the air courtesy Cory of Grant Hammond and Associates.





A strong back light can have magical effects, in this first photo the light invades the frame and helps to translate an exciting moment. In the second image, the harsh light actually softens the image taken during an emotional moment as the birthday girl dances with her father. We use this technique often during the first dances at weddings.



Being true to our roots, these lighting techniques even offer the chance to throw a hint of the high fashion edge that we usually use for portraits into the impromptu party environment. After all, every birthday girl should be treated like a celebrity.

That's all for now. I'll be sure check in again soon, I've got all sorts of new toys I'm shooting with now that I can't wait to brag about.