Tampa Bay Portrait and Wedding Photographers: Modeling portfolio session on the beach

We are so happy that we have found some fun photography Meetup groups here in Tampa. It has really given us a chance to meet photographers in the area, see the sights, and make some great images. One of the groups focuses on bringing photographers and together for creative group sessions focused around a theme. The theme of last month’s session was sunset on the beach. We had 2 beautiful sisters as models, and a truly spectacular sunset at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs.

Modeling session at Fred Howard Park in Tarpon Springs, Florida. This was the kind of photography setting I had in mind when we moved to Florida!

Sand dunes with black-eyed-susans – what a great place to take pictures 🙂

A few more favorites from our “day-time” session before the sun started setting.

We did some fun action shots towards the end of the session. It’s always great to work with models that aren’t afraid to get completely soaked to get a fun image! The picture on the right is a silhouette of the model’s mother, who we sweet talked into getting in front of the camera for a few shots. What a cool mom!

Want to see what the other photographers got from this session? They really worth checking out! They brought battery-powered strobes, and many years of experience with models and made some really beautiful images. You can see the pictures here. I learned some great tips for modeling photography (which is very different from portrait photography), and hope to keep using these meetup sessions to really hone my skills. We will be doing a sports, fitness and dance themed session soon, so check back in a few weeks to see the results. Its gonna be so much fun!

NWA Senior Portrait Photographer – Jessie’s cool country session

Wow – can you believe graduation is only a few months away? For those of you who were holding out for a spring senior portrait session – now is the time! When the rain finally dries up here in Northwest Arkansas, it is going to be a beautiful spring. I decided to save doing a blog post on this session till the spring portrait season to schedule a session for your grad before it’s too late.

Jessie was so much fun to work with (and yes, I would think that even if she wasn’t my cousin), and we took the opportunity to shoot her senior portraits after the annual family golf tournament. Don’t ask how I did – it isn’t worth talking about – hehe! Jessie, on the other hand is a gifted golfer who has been making her high school proud as a member of the golf team. The family golf tournament was held in Antlers; a small town in rural Southeastern Oklahoma. We came in from Fayetteville and Jessie drove from Dallas, so a little scouting was in order to find some cool locations. Luckily, my dad grew up in Antlers and had some good tips on where we might look. We found some fabulous locations and had a blast doing these portraits, even though it kind of makes me feel old that my little cousin is graduating high school!

The "downtown" area of Antlers (and I use that term loosely) had some great older buildings that made wonderful backgrounds. The only problem was getting the local guys to quit driving around the block whistling and hooting!

The town also has a historic depot with an old train parked next to it. Too bad we didn't have some cute vintage luggage to use as props - that would have been even cooler.

I tried my hand at a few Banners for Facebook Timeline using images from this session. Although I am not a fan of how the Timeline is laid out, it is fun to have that big space at the top for images. Here are the results:

I put this Facebook banner together with some of the fun senior portraits we did on the train tracks using off-camera flash. What a great look!

Jessie may be from the big city of Dallas, but she is a country girl at heart. We used an old pickup parked next door to my grandma's house for these shots. It was practically buried in pine needles, and the licence plate in front said "Jim's Jem" - it doesn't get more country than that 😉

This old roofless building was so crazy cool, I want to pick it up and drop it somewhere in Northwest Arkansas! It was graffiti and vine-covered and had all these great door and window openings. I love the way these turned out!

To end the session we went down to the river for some sun flare and in-the-water pictures as the sun was sinking. Wow - can you say supermodel!? LOVE the image on the right.

Like I said earlier we had tons of fun doing these images. Jessie – you are a beautiful lady inside and out, and we wish you all the best as you start your college adventures! Thanks for letting us be a part of your senior year experience. 🙂

Favorite images you didn’t see from 2011

Can you believe 2011 is gone? I was thinking about what I wanted to do for my last blog post of the year, and it brought to mind  the “last shot” page at the end of National Geographic magazine where they showcase an image that wasn’t published but was still a cool picture. So I decided to share some of my favorite images that didn’t make the blog. It’s always hard for me to pick which pictures best sum up a wedding or photo shoot best, without making the post too long. Some of these did end up in Facebook galleries, some of them I never got the chance to share at all. (BTW – one of my resolutions for 2012 is to get back to timely blogging since I was not so good at that this year). So enjoy  this 2011 Steely Joe version of the “Last Shot” gallery, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Alizabeth won a free bridal session at one of the spring Bridal shows. She had already made arrangements for wedding day photography, but it was still lots of fun doing some studio bridals with her.

I never did a blog post with her Bridal portraits, but you can see more images from her session in the Facebook gallery Alizabeth’s Bridal Session.

Continuing with the bridal portrait theme, Kathryn’s bridal portraits in Bentonville were fun to shoot even if it was literally 110 degrees out! (Ok, I exaggerate – it had dropped to a cool 106 by the time we started the session) You can see more images from this shoot in the Facebook gallery Kathryn’s Bridal Portraits.

Kathryn was such an easy bride to work with, and this great little series of images was taken as test shots while she talked to her mom off-camera.

Ok, so this takes a little explaining. The bride and groom each had a teenage daughter as a bridesmaid in the wedding. The bride's daughter was in charge of the groom's wedding ring, which she pretended to lose. So she starts looking for it in her dress and pulls out a variety of items (including lip gloss which she pauses the search to apply) until producing a snuff can. With the help of her partner in crime, they get the stubborn can open, and hand over the ring! Good thing their parent have a good sense of humor 🙂

Th images below come from (in order from left) Curtis and Marcia’s Huntsville wedding, Thomas and Kathryn’s Cooper Chapel wedding, and Sanchez and Bobby’s Little Rock wedding:

From left: The groomsmen in this wedding were real characters, and when I told them to act casual, four of them all looked off in the exact same direction, but one guy in the back did the complete opposite, which of course cracked everyone up. Center: one of Ed's fun kiddie pictures. These kids spotted Ed near the entrance to the chapel and decided to mug for the camera. Right: This picture makes me smile every time I see it. While we were setting up for portraits, the bride is trying to wrangle all the kids, the bridesmaids are totally hamming it up behind her, and in the middle of the chaos the groom has his "please let this be over so we can go to the reception" face on 😉

The next two images comes from two fun weddings this summer, Abby and Adam’s wedding in Lowell, and one more from Sanchez and Bobby’s wedding in Little Rock.

Right: Abby and Adam cheese it up. Left: Sanchez gives herself one last check in the mirror before the ceremony.

In the first image below, Lensa and Lee dance alone surrounded by family and friends. Although I was just a guest at this wedding, I couldn’t help taking a few pictures from the balcony. The second image is from Nancy and Tony’s wedding at Lake Wedington.

Left: A beautiful moment on the dance floor at Lensa and Lee's reception. Right: The bride reaches up to wipe a tear from the groom's face during Nancy and Tony's ceremony.

This year I decided I would love to do senior portraits as well as wedding photography. I couldn’t have asked for more fun ambassadors. They all had great ideas and a unique style that was so great to work with. In the collage below, Katie rocks her class ring, Jordan proves you can never have too many flowers in your portraits, Aaron takes aim with his bow, Jessie shows off her lime-green laces.

My awesome senior portrait ambassadors for the class of 2012: Katie, Jordan, Jessie, and Aaron.

I would like to take a moment and thank all the super-cool clients I had the privilege to work with this year. You constantly re-affirm why I love to do what I do, and I can’t wait to see what next year has in store!

Wishing you all the best in the New Year,

Anita

NWA Senior Portrait Photography – Katie Class of 2012

I had the pleasure of meeting Katie when I photographed her dad’s wedding to one of my cousins earlier this year. Right away we decided it would be great to do senior portraits together. She wanted something fun and unique, which of course I love to do. Katie is a country girl, and also loves fashion, so we shot with several different backgrounds in the studio, then headed down to Dixon Street in Fayetteville.  After a quick stop at the Greek Theater on the U of A campus, we headed out to a rural swimming hole to do some in-the-water portraits. We had so much fun hanging out! The images below are some of my favorite page designs from her brag book.

Studio portraits

I love the glamorous look of these portraits using sheer curtains!

Country girl!

Portraits near Dixon Street.

The Greek Theatre was a fun place to take pictures, and her outfit was perfect for this location!

Swimming hole portraits near West Fork. I have the inset picture hanging in the studio 🙂

Even in the middle of a drought, this spring-fed swimming hole is deep enough to jump into. Katie just couldn't resist, so at the end of the shoot she took the plunge!

Wouldn’t you love to have this much fun getting your senior portraits done? See our website for galleries and rates for your own awesome senior portraits!

NWA Senior Portraits – Jordan class of 2012

I had so much fun with Jordan, one of my High School Senior Portrait ambassadors for the class of 2012. She was creative and relaxed, and we got some great portraits on Dixon Street in Fayetteville before going over to my aunt-in-laws house to get some awesome pool portraits. Check out some of my favorites from our fabulous portrait session:

I like the "fashion model" look to these pictures.

Hats off to Jordan's mom, who went into a pool hall to ask if we could use the motorcycles parked outside for pictures! Needless to say, the owners were happy to oblige 🙂

The Walton Arts Center Rose Garden made a great backdrop for some "sweet and pretty" pictures.

What a great swimming pool my aunt let us use! And I love Jordan's "lounging by the pool" outfit with the big floppy hat. Very posh!

Its fun to do something a little out of the ordinary for your senior portraits, you just have to save these kind of pool portraits for last 🙂

This is my personal favorite from the session. Love this shot!

We had so much fun with Jordan and her mom, and I can’t wait to do a fall color senior session later this year. If you are looking for a NWA Senior Portrait photographer, I would love to meet with you. We will make your session unique and perfect for your individual style, with pictures and products that will be the envy of your classmates! 2012 Seniors are already getting pictures done, and  fall sessions can fill up early. Plus, if you “like” Steely Joe Studio on Facebook before you book, you will save $20 off your session fee!

Book before the Bridal fair for 2009 rates!

Happy New Year, everyone! If you are planning a wedding and are looking for a photographer, I would love to meet you at my booth on January 16th at the Springdale convention center. The increasing cost of supplies has made some changes to my pricing necessary and the new pricing will go into effect on January 16, 2010. So call me now and save yourself some money! And don’t forget to check out my website for details on how you can “test drive” your wedding photographer.

Portrait rates will be increasing slightly as well, so for those of you thinking about booking spring portraits, don’t put it off any longer!

Senior portraits on pretty fall day

Saturday was a beautiful fall day! The leaves were bright, it was warm and not raining (a nice change of pace for this fall). I was very happy to take advantage of that to do some senior portraits in Rogers. We started at Lake Atlanta, then moved to a small city park that had a spectacular tree shedding bright orange and yellow leaves. Here are a few images from the shoot:

It was just barely warm enough for this dress! This is not the obvious fall foliage shot, but the trees add a nice reflection to the water.

This is why I love shooting on-location! It would take a lot of effort to make a background this pretty in a studio.

Joseph’s senior pics

This was my first senior portrait shoot in Van Buren. We had to cut things a little short as the rain (once again) was an issue. The portraits were done in downtown Van Buren which is a great place for portraits, despite the weather. We could shoot under the awning at the train station while it was raining, then jump out and use nearby backdrops like the mural whenever it stopped!

mural in downtown Van Buren, AR

at the train station