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.

Pop-Art Inspiration Board

Well the past few weeks Evan and I have been planning an inspiration shoot that will be completely inspired by some of my favorite modern artists. Narrowing down which artists would influence the details was difficult, and after trying to incorporate Jackson Pollock several times, I decided to go with a more streamlined look that will utilize the styles of Andy Warhol, Piet Mondrian, and Roy Lichtenstein.



After scouring the internet for some other art inspired wedding elements (which was no easy feat) I created this inspiration board that I feel captures the essence of these three visionaries.



Now I won't be using all of these ideas and I have a few surprises up my sleeve that you will just have to wait and see. I am so excited to be able to incorporate some art history into this wedding shoot and glad that I finally have something concrete to show you all so you can get as excited as I am :)

Victoria & Brandon Engagment Session

Victoria & Brandon were married this past Saturday, and since Brandon flew in from Idaho only a few days before the wedding, we did a mini engagement session with them so that we could get to know Brandon better before the big day. We shot at Seminole Lake Park which is where Brandon first asked Victoria to be his girlfriend. It's a beautiful park with a trail and we got to enjoy an encounter with a gopher tortoise at the end of the session.







Such a sweet couple. And since we edited the photos same day for them, they met us back at the studio and we got to look through them all together. It was so enjoyable to see their reaction and excitement at each photo. We should have couples over for live previews more often.

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.