Visiting Tampa Bay from Louisville, Ronnie and Lindsey were staying at the Don when one evening Ronnie revealed to his fiancee the real reason there came here – he asked her to marry him! Capturing the couple’s excitement was easy – emotions were strong and everybody around could tell how passionate they were about one another! Our session began inside because the sun was still a bit strong, yet the amount of light we were getting through the large windows of the hotel’s corridors was just perfect. There were not many tourists in the lobby that evening which allowed us get the most use of the Don’s awesome interior. Once the time got closer to the sunset, Lindsey and Ronnie changed and we went out on the beach.

When couples suggest the beach as an engagement spot I always try to incorporate at least one more place which would differ in feel and style from the beach. Beach is fun, don’t get me wrong, but there is only so much you can do with the sun, water and sand. And that’s one of the things I like about engagement locations such as Don Cesar – it offers such a variety of scenery without the need to travel to different places. In and around the Don you get to photograph with beautiful architecture in the background, while few steps away on the beach it’s a completely different feel.

Additionally, I often try to alternate the approach I’m using from one location to another. While inside the hotel I mostly directed and posted the couple, the moment we stepped on the beach I completely switched gears. It all became about interaction between Lindsey and Ronnie – they walked, talked, ran, goofed around and simply had lots of fun. By this time they felt a lot more comfortable in front of the camera and the shooting as well as their interaction was flowing very naturally. Half an hour later, as the sun touched the horizon we finished our session with a series of awesome sunset shots and wrapped it up with few pictures featuring Don Cesar in the background.

Here are few of my favorites from that day, hope you enjoy them!

Previously I also posted Jen and Ian’s canvas print and in next few days I’ll share a couple of more canvas, but with so-called “floating frames”, stay tuned!

I met Emily and Cory at the park about an hour before the sunset and we started with some pictures of the three of them. Beans’ patience ran out rather quickly, but by then we already managed to capture few very cool photos. At that point Beans volunteered to watch my camera bag while we proceeded with the portraits of Emily and Cory alone. We shot in the park for a little while and then walked out onto Bayshore for few more fun photos before the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Despite the cold evening weather we had a lot of fun and I hope the pictures shows it. Here are few of my favorites, enjoy!

Click here to view the entire gallery!

Since I also wanted to record this session on video (to make a short “behind the scenes” clip), I thought it would be a great idea to use at least a couple of different locations – different in style, different in feel. Since part of the shoot was going to take place in downtown, I decided that Ybor City would provide exactly the contrast I was looking for. Being a very popular place for engagement as well as wedding photography in Tampa, Ybor offers incredible variety of photo opportunities. I love its architecture, love the narrow streets, old buildings, little cafes, restaurants, cigar shops – love everything about it.

That Sunday I met Dinara and Johnny in Ybor City where we began our photo session a couple of hours before the sunset. One of the nice things about both downtown and Ybor is that you don’t have to go far to find variety – just walk a block or two in any direction and you get completely different scenery. Anyway, after about 40 or so minutes of fun in Ybor, we jumped into our cars and drove over to the Curtis Hixon Park, which was just a short ride away. We stayed at the park until the sun was gone and ended up shooting lots great pictures. In this post I’m including just a few of my favorites; however, A LOT more can be found in this VIDEO.

Enjoy!!

This was a one year wedding anniversary photo session for one of my couples, whose wedding I photographed in October of 2009. It lasted close to two hours and we covered a couple of different locations: Ybor City and Tampa Downtown (Curtis Hixon Park). The session was a lot of fun and we ended up with tons of great shots.

Enjoy!

I would like to thank Dinara and Johnny for letting me use their session to create this little video as well as David of Trinity Wedding Video for doing all the camera work. Photography and video-editing by Vadim Photo.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of photographing the engagement, and later on the wedding, of a great couple – Jen and Ian. They both live in St. Petersburg and enjoy everything about it. Naturally, we decided that it would be a perfect place for their photo session. We started out at one end of the Beach Drive (by the Vinoy resort) and slowly made our way towards the Pier. I was amazed how diverse downtown St. Pete is – highraises on one side, the bay on the other, with lots of alleys and greenery in between. You can never run out of ideas shooting there.

The session was a lot of fun – Jen and Ian got really into it pretty much right away – they were posing, jumping, laughing and seemed very relaxed. I think we easily spent a couple of hours and by the sunset, ended up with tons of great shots. Here are few of my favorites, and stay tuned for the pictures from their wedding (coming up next).

Curtis Hixon was where we started with Maria and Alex last weekend, couple of hours before the sunset. And while I could easily shoot at that park for two hours and never run out of ideas, we decided to mix it up a little. Alex wanted to take some pictures in Ybor, while Maria preferred University of Tampa’s campus. Luckily, both places were nearby so we managed to cover both.

First, we went to Ybor and walked down the 7th Avenue, taking few photos here and there, having fun, stopping at a cigar shop and their favorite La Creperia restaurant. From there we drove to the University of Tampa campus, where we took some awesome pictures by the Hillsborough river with downtime skyline in the background at twilight.

Enjoy these pictures and stay tuned for their wedding this December!

Maria and Alex, click here to see the entire gallery.

We started our session at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota just a couple of hours before the sunset. This was Nicky’s idea and the moment she mentioned it – I knew we absolutely had to do it. Many Sarasota wedding photographers are quite familiar with this place – Cà d’Zan Mansion is probably one of the most recognizable architectural wonders in the area and a very popular venue for wedding ceremonies or receptions. And even though we didn’t get a chance to shoot around the mansion itself, (due to a wedding photo shoot taking place there), we managed to capture quite a few very nice photos in the museum’s gardens.

From there we headed to another popular among Sarasota wedding photographers spots – Siesta Key beach. This place was very special to both of them – it was here, about a year ago, Wayne actually proposed Nicky and she said “Yes!”. We hoped for a clean sunset but the sky was a bit cloudy that evening so we ended up shooting tons of awesome portraits with the help of this incredibly soft light coming from above. Here are some of my favorites from that day:

Photographer’s secret: we love shooting engagement sessions and here is why – it allows us to establish personal connection with the couple way before the wedding day. I think it’s essential for the couple to trust their photographer, to be confident in his/her ability to produce photos of great quality. Couples learn to get a lot more comfortable in front of the camera, get familiarized with our shooting style (the angles we take, the prompts we give, the poses we show, etc) and we, wedding photographers, get a chance to learn more about what works for this particular couple better – whether it’s posed shots, motion posing, candid approach, etc. There are lots of other benefits engagement session (or pre-wedding photoshoots) have, and I’ll talk about them in my future posts.

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