Elle Creative Photography is now expanding!

I AM SO EXCITED TO ANNOUNCE

please visit the expanded website! It's GORGEOUS!!! 

click here: PostFilm, an artist's life after film

GOOGLE + FANATIC! A Florida photographer's quirky take on awesome socializing.

Have you seen the Google+ site? Are you on it? You should add me! I am completely obsessed with it and am updating the site more there than anything else. It's amazing, hands down.

So far it's also been really useful for my business. I've had real time "hang outs" with clients via a skype-like application that allows us to talk face to face. This is a wonderful feature for my destination brides, so I can "meet" them ahead of time.

Neat right?

So for those girls in New York, Atlanta, and Austin that are flying in to Tampa for their weddings, you can now talk with me face to face.

The sky's literally not even the limit anymore, more like outerspace (haha!)

Check out some of what my posts look like- a smattering of work, some personal stuff, you name it...

Other great features besides the hangouts:
-direct integration of all google applications, not just gmail!
-SPARKS, a great way to type in your interests and follow all of your local favorites and learn more about whatever your passion is (like photography!)
-security and privacy features that surpass other social applications. Don't want your Mom seeing your live updates and bar check in's while you're 2 Vodka Martini's deep? No problem!
-Accidentally commented on a post, (maybe an adorable picture of a cat or baby), that is eternally annoying you with spam comments from other users? No sweat, just mute it and never hear about it again!

Hope to see all your faces on Google+ when it opens to the general public on July 31st! Come find me when it does!

Fort De Soto Engagement Session

Here's a very quick sneak peek of one of my favorite shots from today's engagement sessions at Fort De Soto in St. Pete:

I'm seriously so surprised it didnt rain through this session. Lately the Tampa Bay Area has been like the set of Jumanji. Every five seconds there seemed to be some sort of dice rolling, fate driven, ridiculous flood crashing through the area causing all sorts of shenanigans. But, the rain held out just long enough for me to finally shoot Deanna and Chris's engagement session.

It seems like they've been patiently waiting forever so I was so excited when the weather forecast cleared up. There are a bunch of photos I love, but this one in particular is my favorite right now. Deanna and Chris were troopers trudging around in the post rain wet sand and puddles.

The rest I'll be editing this week and should be up pretty quickly!

Also, for the photographer's reading this: Because of the rain and pending angry thunderclouds, I used a significant amount of off camera flash. The sun hid behind clouds pretty frequently, so I definitely needed a little extra help with the light to make things crisp, clean, and vibrant. I pushed this particular photo one stop up, and fired the master flash to not contribute to the image. It really worked, and looks pretty natural- I am huge on working with people as they are and photographing them to look like themselves, and that means trying to closely imitate natural light when natural light may not be as readily available as I'd like it to be.

Palma Ceia Country Club (Tampa) Bride

Oh dang, I got so caught up yesterday that I couldn't post! It's been raining here like crazy and it seems like Tampa's getting totally soaked. I have a shoot tomorrow at Fort De Soto for an engagement session and it's looking a little dreary. Have to wait and see.

Here's another set I'm working on right now of a past bride that was married at the Palma Ceia Country Club off Macdill Ave in Tampa. Not sure how many of you are familiar with this particular location but it's stunning... just like this bride.

As far as where I'm at with editing images for the website: it seems like it's so slow going. But, in the age of immediate, everything seems slow doesn't it?

Speaking of immediate, who has been invited to the new Google+? I'm on it and having a ridiculously good time. If any of you out there in cyber land want to add me, I'm under atkins.photography (at) gmail dot com! Feel free to interact with me on there.

I have a feeling it's going to be the next wave of neat things to come, especially since you can choose who gets to see what, when, and how!

Day 2- a look at what I'm working on as a Tampa Wedding Photographer

When I first thought out my website, I started my main page slideshow with a pair of shoes. These shoes above, actually. Now, I am in the process of pulling more images, and these shoes aren't going away. However, they're going in a different order in the slideshow. I want to wow my brides, and although these are some seriously gorgeous shoes (Hell-ooo Louboutin), they're taking a back seat to more amazing images of past couples.


This got me thinking heavily on marketing and being an impactful vendor in my area. In terms of websites, SEO, and internet presence, a lot of professionals (all over) have a heightened awareness of what they should say, when they should say it, and in what optimized terms they can say it in. A lot of times people get caught up in coding, key wording, and marketing themselves that they forget that a good old fashioned cup of coffee with another professional in their industry can do wonders for their insight on what people want in their area. Blogs can sound a little forced and canned when it's peppered with Google Ad Words, and sometimes it's really nice to take a step back from the computer screen and interact with someone one on one.

Besides, it's nothing like hearing a hair stylist or florist's take on how they do things. I walk away with some amazing tips and great vendors to refer my brides to!