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!

New Postcards

Our new pricing is effective today!

CSE Grand Opening and Party!

Well, after a month of buying furniture, building furniture, decorating the space, setting up the studio, making prints, hanging frames, moving our lighting equipment here and planning for the Grand Opening...it's all finally done. The space is 100% ours and we got to celebrate with our friends, family, clients, chamber members and fellow wedding professionals for the dream of opening a store-front that we finally made into a reality.

We had over 70 people come through during the party and congratulate us and celebrate with us with delicious food from Orange Blossom Catering, and treats from our neighbors It's Icing On The Cake.

Here are some pictures from the Opening party. Thanks to everyone who made it out, and to those that couldn't we would love to have you over to tour the space and check out our gallery.









Thanks to everyone who helped contribute to make this such an awesome party;
Event Design Elan Event Studio
Catering Orange Blossom Catering
DJ Grant Hemond & Associates
Linens Linens By The Sea
Mini Cupcakes and Desserts It's Icing On The Cake

All in all it was a great event, and I am happy to be back to a normal schedule of editing, designing and blogging. I think I have enough material for a post every day this month so let's see how that goes.

New Logo!

Of course the plan has always been to re-brand when we get the studio up and running. First things first....logo design. Although Evan and I do most of the graphic elements ourselves and I have lots of design background, I decided to hand over the reigns to a real professional graphic designer...as in it's the only thing she does for a living :) Scared to turn over the reigns to someone else, I am delighted to say it was an amazing experience. After many proofs we narrowed it down and then my designer Katie created the fabulous final logo that I am in love with. It is exactly what I pictured in my head but couldn't put on paper by myself. We should have our new sign next week and business cards following soon.....but here it is.



Katie is located in Tampa and I highly recommend her if you need any help with logo or monogram design as well as marketing materials. She's fabulous!

Our New Studio!

Well the past few weeks have been really crazy, we moved into a studio space on Central Avenue in St Petersburg and the transition has been so much better than expected. We were really nervous about getting a storefront space and all the overhead that comes with it, but we also know it has become a necessity to meet clients and to be as productive as we need to be. We are really lucky to have the business take off the way it has and I think we are realizing that this what we were meant to do. It's coming along amazing so far and we hope to have a huge opening party in about a month. Our space is right next door to It's Icing On The Cake and across the street from The Dressing Room so we have already made lots of new friends and our neighbors are incredible. Now that we're all moved in we've opened doors and started having meetings here and soon we will add our gallery to the front lobby. For now, here are some pictures of the lobby and studio!

The Studio Booth/ Get to Know Your Photographers

This is a post I've been wanting to do for a while, 1- to show more examples of our version of the photo booth that we offer at Weddings and Events, and 2- to show our personalities a little more to our readers and 3- I really wanted to try out our new backdrop. Our biggest goal as wedding photographers is to have fun with our couples and really get to know each other so that when we shoot your wedding, it's like we're old friends and you are super relaxed when the camera is on you.

So, Evan and I set up a Studio Booth in our living room and took turns taking portraits of each other in the booth, sometimes with props that we feel represent who we are. We're really just a couple of goof-balls that love to have fun and I hope that this won;t scare anyone away thinking we are loony-tunes ;) I also wanted to finally get some nice portraits up on our website of us, and as a couple who are also photographers, you tend to get lots of great portraits of each other, but never any together. So, we made a goal to get a few cute shots with both of us in frame.






We are also going to be adding a Q&A section to our website so, please if you can think of anything you really want to know about us or our photography, leave us a question here or on our Facebook and we'll try to include it!

CSE Photography awarded a 2010 Brides Choice Award from WeddingWire !

WeddingWire.com has selected CSE Photography LLC to receive the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ which recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry! This means we are among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals!!




When looking at the list of others in the Tampa Bay area that also received this honor, I notice many are well established, high-end, studios that and I am so excited to be included among them because I admire many of them. We are so happy to be considered among the best in the industry!

Company Launch!

Photography has always been a passion of both Evan and myself for many years. Now that Evan's production company (Tall Man Pictures, LLC) has reached its one year anniversary, we have decided to begin offering photography services through its new sister company: CSE Photography. Between Evan's years of experience in the film and advertising industry, and my education and experience with photography and image editing; we know that we will be very successful with this new venture.

Thanks for following our blog, and I will keep you posted as we develop our website and post photo-shoot images! -Caroline Smith

Our Mission Statement:

CSE Photography specializes in wedding, portrait, advertising, headshot, and event photography. Because we are a family business, we are able to offer the very lowest rates for the very best quality. We are proud to work closely with our clients, before and after the event, to deliver the best images that are exactly what you desire and more. As a husband/wife team we have the experience you look for in a photographer and the creativity to capture unique images that tell a story: Yours.

We shoot in both traditional and photo-journalistic styles, and though we mainly operate out of St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay area; we will travel anywhere in Florida and have covered events from Palm Beach to Sarasota and Orlando.