Mud Wars- Event Photography on a Whim

By Evan

This blog post had been a long time coming. You're no longer reading the elegant words of Caroline, my beautiful wife. Instead, you have switched gears to the less social media inclined thoughts of he who puts the "E" in CSE Photography, Evan.

Expect more tech related items coming from me in the future, but for today, I thought I'd mention a recent spur of the moment shoot we did in downtown Saint Petersburg. On our way to an event at the pier, we stopped by Spa Beach where an unexpected treasury of images awaited us. The first annual Adult Mud Wars put on by Tampa Bay Club Sport was taking place. After catching a glimpse of the festivities, we quickly ran home and grabbed the camera.

On this day, history was made as many proud athletes gathered from the Bay area to compete in many activities including mud tug of war, mud football, mud dodgeball, and mud obstacle courses. It's not hard to figure that these are events with capturing, enjoy.













Some of the best shots- both in life and in weddings- are the ones you can't predict. Look forward to some insight on shooting and editing techniques we use to add the extra flare and personal touch to all our client's photos.

New Year's Eve: 1920's Style

We got to shoot a really awesome New Year's Eve party for Elyse and Ian (who are also newly engaged!) and the theme of the night was 1920's. Everyone was dressed up; flappers, gangsters, some 20's baseball players and even Lawrence of Arabia. So of course, this was a great opportunity for a Studio Booth!

I got to run the booth while Evan caught the entertainment during the party and it was so much fun getting to chat with all of the guests and get some creative shots with all the fun props we had at our disposal.

St Petersburg Museum of History benefit at Ovation

Last night was my birthday, and although I don't usually like to work we had the pleasure of doing event photography at the museum of history's benefit at Ovation in downtown St. Petersburg which just opened. The benefit was on the 4th floor event space by the pool, fountain and amazing St. Petersburg skyline- an absolutely amazing place to have an event. The event was a lot of fun, with great food from 400 Beach and Savannah's Cafe and great music, and of course we did a photo booth which as always was a great deal of fun. Museum Board President Connie Kone even wished me a happy birthday during the special thanks announcements- too sweet! Here are just some of the event photos:

16th Annual Fish Head Ball: Fanta-Sea Fish Fest

This past weekend we did event photography for the Pier Aquarium's Annual Fish Head Ball which has a fantasy fest theme so it was quite spectacular. There was an auction along with body painting and sampling of delicious food from local restaurants. The painted models made the action a whole lot more interesting and everyone had a great time on the dance floor in their costumes.

3rd Annual Charity Classic Event

Last night was the 3rd Annual Charity Classic at the Centre Club in Tampa, which we donated event photography services as well as a photography package for their auction. The event benefits 3 charities; The Muscular Dystrophy Association, ClubCorp’s Employee Partners Care Foundation and The Children's Cancer Center. The event was a great deal of fun and had amazing food as there was an Iron Chef competition- with the prepared dishes being served. There were 2 rounds and the secret ingredients were wahoo and gator. I can;t believe how amazing the gator dishes were too.







Here is our group shot of all the Chefs that participated, fun group.






We also did a photo booth at this event which everyone had a lot of fun with.

Gasparilla Film Fest Party and Art Auction

This weekend we attended a benefit and art auction for the Gasparilla International Film Festival at the Ritz Ybor. We try to support GIFF as much as we can as Evan has screened there and was a sponsor last year. The art auction was very cool and I got the chance to meet some awesome vendors including Natalie from Chic Sweets who had an awesome candy buffett and we auctioned off a photography package. The other reason this was such an awesome night was because we did our first photo booth with the benefit attendees and it ended up being an even bigger hit than we imagined. I'll post photo booth pictures soon, but for now here are some of the amazing details that Elan Event Studio and the vendors put together.

Happy 20th Birthday Pier Aquaiurm!

For those of you that don't know this about me...I am a fan of cake. If there is one thing that I enjoy more than photography or aquariums, it's butter-cream frosting. I consider myself a connoisseur of sorts, so when Emily at the Pier Aquarium asked me to cover their 20th birthday party it took no convincing. All she had to say was, "There will be 4 cakes".

And were there ever. Cakes by Carolynn provided 3 beautifully decorated sheet cakes as well as a 4th provided by Publix. There were other awesome activities as well as performances by the Mt. Zion Drumline and Color Guard and a baby shark dance by the Pizazz Song & Dance Troupe. But as you look as these cake pictures, for which I got the opportunity to be reacquainted with my Macro lens, you will see why I was in the clouds.