Captured by God Photography

I just received an email from someone informing me that one of my images is on someone else's website and facebook page.

The studio is called Captured by God Photography. Here's the links to my image on their pages:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=329396263741963&set=a.329395963741993.95992.232021380146119&type=3&theater

http://capturedbygodphotography.zenfolio.com/p602613442/h325b52f8#h325b52f8

Tampa Photography in Ybor

This week I was in Ybor City for a session with some old friends.

Jesse and Jen were married a couple of years ago and I was their wedding photographer.  They cam back to me this year because they wanted to update their pictures and get some wall art for their home.  I just love being able to catch up with past clients.  I don't think that people realize how invested you can become with clients when you are their wedding photographer.  You spend a lot of time with them before the wedding and then you are right there on this very special day, documenting everything.  It's always great to be able to keep in touch as the years pass.  Facebook is great for that but nothing beats the chance to photograph a couple years later.

Here are a few of my favorites from the session.  Click on any one to launch the slideshow:

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Two people, one light

I recently had the privilege of photographing Michael and Danielle's engagement session in Safety Harbor.  They booked me in 2010 for their wedding in 2012... this is a couple who is prepared!

I always encourage my clients to be creative at their engagement photo session.  Bring a change of clothes, props, anything that you think might be fun.  I tend to adhere to the, "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks" philosophy.  My sessions are about 50% planned and about 50% on-the-spot inspiration.

Michael and Danielle did not disappoint.  They told me that one of the funny things about their relationship was that they had a bit of "role-reversal" compared to typical couples.  Michael does most of the cooking and cleaning, Danielle fixes things.

They came prepared to illustrate their respective roles with cookware and tools.  The question was: How do I photograph them in a creative way?

Superheroes.

Taking photographs in bright sun with off-camera flash

Last week I shot an engagement session that started earlier in the day than I prefer.  Most photographers will try to shoot during the "golden hour" just before sunset because you generally get the best light then and maybe a great sunset to work with.  For this session, we started about three hours before sunset with no clouds in sight.  Fighting the sun can be a challenge sometimes but it also offers some great opportunites for unique shots.

I'm a wedding photographer in Tampa Bay, FL and these pictures were taken in Sawgrass Lake Park.

For this shot I used a 70-200mm zoom and a Canon 580EX on a tripod with a shoot-thru umbrella.  The first thing I did was set up the camera for the husband in the back.  Right away you have to figure that you'll be shooting at the highest flash sync-speed possible all day, which for the Canon is 250/th of a sec.  So, that's my starting point. Then I bring the exposure up until I am getting a decent exposure of the husband (in this case, f4).  Now, he's a little blown out, I know, but that's what I wanted.  I wanted the wife to be perfect and him to be a little sun-blasted.  Once I had the exposure dialed in for the husband I set my flash power to match.  On a bright day the flash will be at full power most of the time.  I fine tune the settings by moving the light closer or farther from the subject.  Notice that both husband and bride are being lit from the same side?  That's the benefit of off-camera flash.  It looks like they are both standing in the sun when in fact she is in shade and the flash is filling in for sunlight.

Valentines Photo Contest

I'm always on the lookout for contests to enter.

Contest submission is tricky.  I always find myself torn between submitting what I believe is the best image and submitting what I believe has the best chance to win.  Trying to guess what the judges will be looking for is incredibly hard.  Photography is art and no two people look at it the exact same way.  Many times I have failed to place in a contest only to see the winning entry be very similar to a picture of mine that I rejected for consideration.

Yesterday I entered a contest sponsored by a company that makes photography backdrops.  These types of contests are really just promotional tools for the company that sponsors them but hey, I'll take a free backdrop any day! 

The theme of the contest is "Valentines."  Right away, I'm at a disadvantage because I can only assume that the winner will probably be a picture that was taken using a background.  I mean, they make backgrounds, they want to sell backgrounds.  Are they really going to pick a winner that doesn't use their product?

Oh well, I decided to submit a picture that I think is unique and fun.  I don't think I'll win but I do think it's a great picture!  I call it, "No U-Turn."

This picture was shot during an engagement session last year, on Kennedy Blvd in Tampa.  I used a neutral density filter to cut down the sunlight enough so that I could shoot at a slow shutter speed.  Without the filter I would not have been able to get the cars to blur.  There was a little retouching done, mainly to the grass on the island (I cloned the grass to cover some concrete).

See more engagement pictures on my website.

St. Petersburg Engagement Session

The set up on this picture was funny because we were in beautiful downtown St. Pete for the session and I dragged Danielle and Sean into an alley so I could use the big yellow wall. A woman walked by while we were shooting and said, "You're taking pictures here!?" (see more on BoorayPerry.com)

Engagement session in downtown St. Petersburg

It's been raining every day for a month here in Tampa, which can be a problem for a wedding photographer. On the other hand, if you're lucky enough to catch a few hours in between the storms you get great, even light because of all the clouds. Such was the case last week in downtown St. Petersburg when photographing Danielle and Sean.

At the end of the session I asked Danielle if there was anything else she would like to do... anything that caught her eye. She said, "I'd like to do something with the statues." You'd be surprised at how many great picture ideas come from the client and not the photographer.

More of my Tampa engagement photography can be seen on my website..

Save the Date cards - Cheryl and Matt - Tampa

Cheryl and Matt are getting married in November and I'll be their wedding photographer. I love all my brides but I do have a special place in my heart for the ones who obviously have put a lot of thought into the kind of photography they want for their wedding. I have a passion for what I do and I have much more fun when my wedding couple is as excited about the creative process as I am. That's Cheryl.

We finally were able to take engagement photo's last weekend after four unsuccesful attempts (it's been raining all week inTampa). I've been designing a "Save the Date" card for them and below are my two favorites...

Booray Perry is a wedding photographer in Tampa Bay

Tampa Engagement Photographs in Ybor City

Ybor City is one of my favorite places to take pictures. There are so many textures and colors to work with that I could spend an entire day thare and never take the same picture twice.

Here are a few pictures from Douglas and Danielle's engagement session. For more wedding and engagement photography in Tampa, visit my website.

Engagement photographs, Lindsey and Tom at University of Tampa

I shot engagement photographs for Tom and lindsey last week at University of Tampa (one of my favorite spots). They actually met as toddlers and have known each other their entire life. They were great together and we got some terrific shots.






For more Tampa Bay engagement pictures visit my website at www.boorayperry.com.

Wedding Photographer Tampa: What to buy part 2

In the first installment of this series I talked about the proof book and why it's a great place to start when spending your wedding photography budget (For more Tampa wedding photography, please visit my Tampa wedding photography website.) This time let's talk about the hi-res CD.

Now, if you've read many posts on this blog you know that I have a love/hate relationship with the Hi-res CD when it comes to weddings. Basically, I love that you can buy digital copies of all your images to keep forever but I hate that so many people are getting inferior prints because they are not properly educated by their wedding photographer. Buy the CD (in many cases it is included) because you never know what the future may hold (someday you may be able to get a hologram made of your whole wedding, who knows?). But, if you want some prints to display, frame, enlarge, etc.... have your photographer print them.

There are three kinds of wedding photographers in Tampa Bay:

Shoot and Burn: These are the ones that photograph your wedding and hand you a CD of the images. Most will do some simple color correction and exposure correction to the files but some don't. Either way the retouching is minimal because there are 400 pictures on the disk and no one has time to retouch that many pictures. A basic retouch takes 5 minutes per image. That's 33 hours! Sorry, they run a couple of batch programs, burn the disk and move on to the next client, leaving you with sub-par pictures being printed by the kid at Wal-Mart.

Shoot, Burn and Upload: These photographers burn a disc for you and also upload your images to a service like "Pictage" so that you can order online. This is a little better than the first group because at least a pro lab is printing your pictures. Still, the same time rule applies: How much time do you think your wedding photographer spends individually retouching 300-400 pictures?

Shoot, Burn, Upload, Retouch and Print: Now we're talking! This is me (and many other Tampa wedding photographers). This is the group that burns a CD for you and uploads your images to a private gallery so that you can purchase them online but, and this is all the difference in the world, they hand-retouch every image that is ordered. These photographers are not happy to just hand off a CD. These wedding photographers take such pride in their work that they do not want a single print to be made that hasn't been personally touched and perfected by them. These are the photographers you want photographing your Tampa Bay Wedding.

So, by all means buy the CD and lock it away for safe-keeping. Take it down to the drugstore and get 300 4x6 prints made or 50 wallets to send to your friends and family. But, if you want a print to sit on your nightstand for the next 20 years or a canvas gallery wrap to hang in the living room, have your wedding photographer retouch and print it.

(Note: I searched through all my wedding pictures for an example I could post here. I wanted to show a picture as it would appear on a CD and then show the same picture as it would appear if I were to retouch and print it. Every picture I've ever printed from every wedding I've ever photographed in Tampa has been retouched by me personally so it's easy to find examples but I can't post them here. I just can't do it. I can't post a picture of one of my clients looking anything less than the very best she can, even to make a point. I'll gladly show before/after examples during a consultation but not here for the world to see. Sorry.)

Tampa Wedding Photographer

Most brides have a general idea of what questions to ask a potential wedding photographer. The first (and most important) thing is: What's your style? If your wedding photographer doesn't have the same sensibility about wedding photo's as you do there's no point moving to question #2.

However, even after you have exhausted all the obvious questions about price, etc, there are still two that most people don't think to ask that can be very important:

1. Are you insured?
That's right. Your wedding photographer needs insurance. Let's suppose that old Aunt Edna with the bad eyes trips over the photographer's bag and breaks her hip. Her lawyer will tell her to sue the person with the best ability to pay and you can bet that your $500 Craig's List wedding photographer doesn't have a lot of money.

So she sues you.

Make sure your photographer has liability insurance (I carry a million dollars worth).

2. Do you bring back-ups?
There's no stopping the ceremony because your photographer's camera just died. Make sure he has a backup for every major piece of equipment (camera body, lens, flash, memory card).

The answers to these two questions will tell you if your photographer is serious about his profession or just trying to make some extra money and really, do you want the guy who is taking pictures of the most important day of your life to be doing it because he thinks it's an easy way to make some extra cash?

Booray Perry is a wedding photographer in Tampa

Tampa Wedding Photographer seeks can of RAID

Yesterday I did an engagement session with Tara and Jesse. It had rained earlier in the afternoon and so the humidity was pretty bad. This causes problems in several areas when shooting outdoors because the camera lens can fog up, plus everyone is fairly miserable and wet. Tara and Jesse were great sports about it and we got some great pictures.

I was smart enough to think ahead and bring a towel with me to the shoot. It's my personal rule in life that it's always good to have a towel, no matter where you are. Little did I realize that my rule would be tested yesterday.

After shooting for about 30 minutes, we took a break and I went over to my towel which I had laid on the railing of a gazebo. I picked it up and started to wipe down my equipment when I suddenly got a sharp pain in my hand.

It was a wasp. I had draped my towel over a wasp's nest and they weren't too happy about it.

Naturally, once I realized that I was being attacked I did what any sensible-minded grown man does in that situation: I began running in circles, flailing my arms like a backup singer for MC Hammer. Let me tell you, nothing impresses the clients more than the site of their photographer screaming like a little girl.

Luckily, I managed to avoid being bitten a second time and continue the session.

I let the wasps keep the towel.

Booray Perry is a photographer in Tampa that can outrun flying insects if he has to...