Akil Bennett Photography

Hello Ladies!

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:55:56 -0600

This is the funniest thing ever...whoever wrote this is a genius! A friend of mine showed it to me the other day and I'm seriously thinking about switching Old Spice. Talk about good marketing! Anyway if you have 32 seconds for a good laugh, watch the commercial below.

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Ashton Gardens : Shel Bridal

Wed, 03 Mar 2010 09:36:22 -0600

Because the weather outdoors has been so bad in Houston lately we decided it would be best to do Shel's bridal session indoors. She has a friend that works at Ashton Gardens that got us permission to photograph anywhere we wanted at their venue! I do weddings there all the time and shooting there is a breeze...I dig all the natural light in this place. You might remember Shel & Neal from their engagement session I shot last year. They'll be getting married later this month at Union Station, can't wait!

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just some rambling...

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:48:55 -0600

One of the things I'm definitely going to do this year is to try and make this blog more personable. Lately I've only been sharing weddings and portrait shoots, but so much more has been going on in my life and business right now. I'm getting married in less than two months (Costa Rica baby!!), bought some cool gear to play with, further decorated my studio (still haven't posted pics yet and it's been 8 months), hired an associate photographer, getting ready for WPPI and tons of other stuff!

Because I don't always have time to prepare pictures for blog post, there are going to be a lot more post without images or just one or two at the most. I figure it's better to keep this place updated regularly than to have long gaps between blog post. So I'm opening myself up for questions...if my brides have anything they'd like to ask me or have me share, feel free to leave a comment and I'll talk about it here. That goes for photographers as well! I know I don't always respond to all the emails I get from you guys but I'm going to try to get better at answering those questions here.

With that said, check out these shoes that I'm planning on buying for the wedding! I designed them on converse.com and I think they look pretty sweet! I still might go with a nice pair of brown dress shoes but I can't help but think about how fun these would be ;) What do you think?

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Houston Engagement Photos : Erin + Brian

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 13:18:49 -0600

It really was a lot of fun photographing Erin & Brian's engagement session last week! They live in the Heights near my studio and thought it would be a cool idea to do their engagement session around here. I met them at their house and we did a few in front of it and at a near park down the street. It was great because this location was more personal to them (more than any one I could have chosen) and I was able to get some cool images from the locations they picked! I'm definitely going to try and leave it up to my clients to choose their engagement session locations more often from now on, just to keep things fresh. You never know what kind of fun ideas you might come up with!!

They are having a backyard wedding this coming October. From what they've told me so far, it's going to be stylin'...I'm looking forward to it!

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Album Designs

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:42:42 -0600

I know I've gone through a dry spell of blogging lately. I'm going to try to be better at keeping my blog updated though! I'm going to create a series of post geared at showing brides different products and services I offer and give them a little insight on how we do things around here. First up...Album Designs!

Currently all of our albums are custom designed In-house. We try to keep the layouts on these as simple and modern as possible, choosing to highlight the images over lots of clutter and faded backgrounds that may look dated in a few years. My thought is that your album should look and feel timeless! That's why we keep the designs as simple and elegant as possible in a way that uniquely tells your story!

Check out a design below from Shelly & Paul's wedding below. They had an amazing event at Hotel Derek!

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Rockefellar Hall Wedding : Allison + Richard

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:37:55 -0600

Venue: Rockefellar Hall

Cake: Cakes By Gina

Photography: Akil Bennett Photography

Allison and Richard had an elegant daytime wedding at Rockefellar Hall last month. I really loved the details Allison put into her wedding and the parasols were awesome! It definitely adds another element to the portraits...I hope after seeing these some of my current brides go out and get some ;) Big thanks to my assistant shooter Troy Covey for helping me with this one...check out a few of my favorites from their day!

If you'd like to view more images you can view the slideshow here!

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Red Corral Ranch Wedding Photography

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:37:25 -0600

Venue: Red Corral Ranch

Wedding Coordinator: Katie Hood

Photographer: Akil Bennett

I shot this awesome wedding back in October at a cool venue in Wimberely, Tx. Laura and Clint were all smiles the whole day, which made them a lot of fun to photograph! I really love this outdoor wedding!

If you'd like to see more photos from their wedding, you can view the slideshow here!

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Southern Weddings Blog Feature

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:23:15 -0600

The awesome ladies over at Southern Weddings featured Lisa & Andrew's wedding on their blog last week! Southern Weddings is an amazing resource for brides. My fiancée Alex checks it regularly and has gotten all sorts of great ideas to use for our wedding. If you'd like to see their interview on Lisa & Andrew, click here and let them know how good they're looking!

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Hotel Derek Wedding Photos Shelly + Paul

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:26:04 -0600

Wedding and Reception: Hotel Derek

Wedding Coordinator: Couture Weddings & Events

Cake: Sweet Delights

Florist: Lexi's Florist

Event Decor: Darryl & Co.

DJ: LG Entertainers

Photography: Akil Bennett Photography

One of the things I'm going to try to do in 2010 is to blog more of my weddings. I've been pretty good at blogging engagement and bridal sessions but I need to get more actual weddings up on this blog. So to start off, we have Shelly and Paul.

Shelly and Paul got married back in November at Hotel Derek. If you'd like to see a few images from their engagement session, click here. This was my first time photographing at this venue it was a lot of fun. It has a really cool contemporary look inside and I think it went well with Shelly's style. I'm looking forward to working there again soon!

It was a great night. It seemed like everyone had a good time and the wedding party was out on the dance floor the whole night. Paul really loves old school hip-hop and Ceasar from LG Entertainment played it for half the night! It was awesome, they even started a soul train line and I almost got in myself! Such a fun group....check out the images.

If you'd like to see more images, you can view the slideshow here.

1. La Colombe D'OR Wedding In Houston

2. Hotel Zaza Wedding Photography

3. Four Season Wedding Photography

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Published in The Knot Texas

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 08:01:46 -0600

I've been an advertiser on The Knot for a while now. It's a cool resource for brides and enables me to connect with many other professionals in my field. Well in August I was asked to photograph their yearly Industry Networking Event at the House of Blues! You can see some of the photos published in this issue of The Knot Texas magazine. You can also view more photos online here.

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Happy New Year

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 12:27:39 -0600

So I thought I'd get one last post in before the end of the year. It's great being able to go through my blog and see how much I've accomplished this year. It's has also been a good reminder that a lot of my goals haven't been accomplished yet, thus giving me motivation to work even harder next year! Not just on business goals either, but person ones as well.

So here's to a great 2010! Hope everyone has fun and please be safe tonight!

On a side note, I got a Holga film camera last year and I finally got around to developing a few rolls of film that I've shot over the past 2 years. It has definitely been a learning experience using this camera...shooting medium format film is soooo foreign to me. Haha, I'm very thankful for digital cameras. I don't know how the film guys did it back then. Anyway, here are a few shots that I managed to take that were at least usable...enjoy!

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Downtown Richmond Engagement Photos

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:57:46 -0600

Shel and Neal will be getting married next March at Union Station. It's going to be an amazing wedding! I've never worked there before so I'm looking forward to it.

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Avatar

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:23:34 -0600

Film: Avatar

Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Stephen Lang, Sigourney Weaver

Director: James Cameron

Genre: Action/Adventure

It's 2:30 a.m. and I just got home from watching Avatar. All I can say is WOW!! It was amazing...pretty much all I thought it was going to be and more. James Cameron has an awesome imagination and the visuals in this film were crazy. I found out this movie has been 14 years in the making! That's crazy huh? It took that long for Cameron to develop the technology to bring his vision to life. In addition to the visuals he also ties everything together with a classic love story (which we've seen in some of his other films...umm Titanic anyone?) and it doesn't come off as being cheesy or corny. It was great!

When I got home tonight I couldn't stop thinking about the movie so I went to Rotten Tomatoes to look up some reviews of the film. It got an 83%. That's pretty good for a big budget movie like this one. Here is what some of the critics had to say:

"I have seen the future if movies, and it is Avatar." Tom Long

"It extends the possibilities of what movies can do. Cameron's talent may just be as big as his dreams." Peter Travers

The good reviews go on and on. Seriously if you only go see one movie over this holiday break, make it this one. I loved it. I want to go see it again on 3D, maybe on Sunday! Man, I won't be able to sleep tonight because I can't stop thinking about how good it was. I better try though because I have a wedding tomorrow ;)

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Hotel Zaza Wedding Photography

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:46:19 -0600

I photographed Amanda & Ben's wedding back in August at Hotel Zaza. You might recognize them from their engagement session I did a while back. My boy Matthew from Studio 563 came to help me out on this one and got a few crazy ring shots. Check out the photos!

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Our Engagement Session

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:46:32 -0600

One of my best friends, Chris Wineinger, shot and engagement session for Alex and I over the weekend. Chris is a longtime friend and an awesome photographer based out of Houston (who's also engaged...we decided to trade engagement sessions so I will photograph his soon). He'll also be officiating our wedding in April, I guess he's a jack of all trades! We had a lot of fun on the shoot and it was the perfect opportunity for me to show off some of my dance moves! Thanks man, Shake and Bake ;)

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