{500 fan giveaway!]

First I'd like to say to anyone who has an opportunity to go to Miami: visit the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens and you will not regret it. It's absolutely breathtakingly phenomenal, I mean it! I'll close this post with a photo from there. :)

Now, to the real juice! I said a few months ago on my Facebook fan page that when I reached 500 fans, I'd give away a free photo package. Well, that mark was reached yesterday and I am so happy about it! So the PRIZE, in all it's glory, will include:
- a styled portrait photo session of your choice (wedding packages excluded)
- a licensed cosmetologist for hair and make-up and
- three (3) 5x7 prints from the session.
All you have to do is show up and smile.

As with any giveaway, there are RESTRICTIONS, as much as we don't like that part. There aren't many, but alas, here they are:
- must be able to travel to the Venetian Gardens in Leesburg, FL OR the USF area in Tampa, FL and
- must bring a 2gb or larger flash drive

RULES: The session will take place in early 2011 (Jan-March), depending on schedules. Now to entries! To enter, you must go on Facebook and share a link to my photography page. Then, you must go to my website and fill out the contact form completely, checking off that you're entering the giveaway. In the "How can I help you?" box, you must link me to your Facebook account so I can verify that you've posted a link to my page, and give me two reasons why you think you deserve a free photo session. Blog comments and messages or comments on my Facebook personal or fan page will not be counted.

JUDGING: Myself and two other judges will choose the top 20 entrants with the best reasons for a free photo session and a winner will randomly be drawn from there. Family is not allowed to participate.

The DEADLINE for submissions will be Tuesday, November 30 at 11:59pm EST. All web forms are timestamped and sent straight to my email and no late submissions will be accepted. you have one week, so hurry on it! :)

So, good luck to everyone! I'm so excited and I want to send out even more thank yous to all of you! You're the best fans I could ask for and I'm so excited we've come this far in less than a year!

♥ Elly B ♥

{alexis' maternity}

Firstly, I'd like to thank you all so much for your support and remind you that when I reach 500 fans on my facebook page I'll be giving away a free photo session as a thank you! I'm so grateful for everything you all have helped me with all year, I can't say thank you enough!

In the work department, I got to do another set of maternity photos this weekend for Miss Alexis - such a cute mommy-to-be! Alexis is due December 2nd for her first boy, to be named Chance William Lafate, but if he has his way he might make an early appearance! I'll close this with a few of my favorite photos until I can get the rest edited! I hope you all have a great week! :)

♥ Elly B ♥

{linda's portraits}

This was such a fun photo shoot! We intended it originally to be a maternity shoot for Linda's first daughter, due November 15. It turned into basically a family portrait session, for the most part. I got some amazing shots of her sons Jayden, 2, and Zachery, 1. The more photos of children I take, the more I absolutely love doing it!

It was also much harder to do a photo shoot (and edit the photos after, of course!) with a broken finger than I'd anticipated! It's still kind of fun to wear my finger splint so I don't mind much, ha!

I don't have much else to say about the photos except that I'm really happy with how they came out. I can't wait to meet Baby Girl Jones (her name is going to be a surprise to all of us!) next month! :)

♥ Elly B ♥

{nicole and aaron's engagement session}

So I had the honor of photographing Nicole and Aaron for their engagement photos earlier this week! They are so cute and even when they claimed to look so awkward, they definitely did not! I had fun and I was so glad to see them happy together.

I asked Nicole a few questions so I wanted to put those up here too. :)

When did you and Aaron meet?
Aaron and I met in October of 2005 through our church... but we didn't become friends until that February 2006 (or so). He took me to my Senior Prom (still as friends) and after that, our friendship blossomed. We started dating New Years of 2007.

What are your three favorite things about Aaron?
My three favorite things about Aaron are his creativity, his dry sense of humor that makes me laugh, and his eyes. I get lost in them.

What are you most excited about once you tie the knot?
I'm most excited about having a home with Aaron... We can't wait to do everyday things with each other in a place we can call OUR home.

And with that, I'll post a couple of my favorite photos from their session! Congratulations to both of you, I know you'll have a beautiful wedding and a wonderful life together after that! ♥

♥ Elly B ♥

 

 

{october}

...is one of my favorite months of the year. I also love April, June, September and November but that's besides the point. I love October mostly because of Halloween! My favorite holiday (Thanksgiving is second)!

It also happens to be one of the busiest months of my year, repeatedly. Firstly, I am attending USF full time. Secondly, I work weekends at Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens (which is so much fun). Now, I also have so many photo shoots booked and planned and I have to make trips home and that's really hard to do when you're only free one day of the week!

But mostly coming up I have maternity and newborn photo shoots because so many people are pregnant! I'm doing my first official wedding either late this year or early next so I'm also excited about that. Then I have like... 15 photo shoots planned with no set date. We're just all so busy or we don't have the right everything else going on. It's aggravating that I don't have dates set for everything because I'm that kind of person, I need dates set. But it's also cool to know that even if there isn't a set date for it, it's coming soon.

I'm doing a themed shoot with my cousin soon (hopefully) for a magazine. I think it'd be really cool to be published like that and even if not for a huge one like Southern Brides or Real Simple or something, it's still really cool. Which also reminds me! I'm giving away a free photo package (including 2-3 styled sessions) once I reach 500 fans on facebook, so please, if you haven't already, suggest my page to your friends! I'm getting close, last I checked I only need a little more than 100!

Other than that, I have taken on a few other personal projects one of which will be started very soon to make myself some seat covers for my car because I can't find any yellow ones that I like, so why not make them myself? And in what little free time I do find myself having, I tend to be setting more and more Lightroom presets. I haven't used it too much since I got it a while back but I'm getting used to it - it's hard to switch software!

I hope everyone else has a productive October as well, I've got so much planned even into November, I'm so excited to do it all but I don't want any of it to be over! [Oh! And I absolutely love how "Elly B" is catching on in my everyday life, everyone's calling me that now! :) ]

♥ Elly B ♥