My Awesome Blogging Skills Revealed!

I'll admit it, I'm the worst when it comes to blogging my weddings. My photographer friends here in Tampa seem to be so good at getting a bunch of pictures from their wedding on to their blog as quickly as possible. For me, it seems like there's always one other thing on my list that I need to do before I can finally get around to updating the blog. :-)

Luckily, every so often, I get a great reminder from a client like Jessica. Jessica lives in California and came all the way here to Tampa to get married. She just received her wedding album in the mail today and she wrote me an email to tell me how much she loved it. It was a great reminder to me to be sure and put some pictures from her wedding on my blog so everyone can see them. (… Did you notice how I managed to sneak in a little complement to me in this paragraph?)

Jessica and Matt were married on the beach in what might have been the windiest beach wedding I shot all year. No matter, they were great sports about the weather and had a fantastic wedding. It was a real joy working with them.

Here are a few of my favorite images from the wedding:

But wait, I'm not going to post images from the wedding. I have to laugh at myself because as I was writing this blog and preparing to post these images while complaining that I never update my blog, I realized that I'd actually already posted Jessica and Matt's entire album onto the blog. It's three posts before this one. LOL

My blogging skills leave a lot to be desired.

Wedding Photography and The Cell-Phone Face

There's a new trend that I've been witnessing at weddings in the last year or so. It's one of those things that you see happening and you realize that there's nothing you can do about it. It's going to keep happening, it's going to get worse, and there's nothing we can do to stop it. Still, I think it's interesting so I wanted to take a few minutes to point it out.

I don't want you to think that I'm complaining or being whiny... not because I'm not capable of being complaining and whining… Oh yes, I'm very capable… But rather because, as I said, I don't really think there's anything that can be done about this problem. I also think that it's the sort of thing that only wedding photographers really notice so it might be interesting to folks who don't see weddings the way that we do.  :)

Tampa Wedding and Social Event Photographer of the Year

Last night was the holiday party for T.A.P.P.A. (Tampa Area Professional Photographers Association).  The great thing about holiday parties is that it gives everyone an excuse to dress up.  Also, there's a bar.

Every year, someone in the association is named "Photographer of the Year."  The criteria has changed a little over the years.  It used to be that the honor was based on who won the most ribbons in print competitions throughout the year but now they also award points for service to the guild.  It's a good system because you can't "win" just by winning print competitions and you can't "win" just by serving on the board or chairing a committee... you have to do both.  I like that it's given to photographers who win competitions but also give their time to servicing the guild.

This year we actually had a tie for 1st place so we had two "Photographers of the Year."  Great guys who well deserved the honor.

What came as a surprise was that they also gave out plaques for the most points in each individual category of print competition.  There are  five categories (Wedding and Events, Portraits, Electronic Imaging, Commercial and Uncategorized).  I didn't realize that they gave plaques for each category so it was a pleasant surprise when I won the "Event" category. :)

I got a little plaque and everything!

Booray Perry is a wedding photographer in Tampa Bay.  See his work here
The best beach weddings in Florida are by Perfect Florida Beach Wedding