One of the greatest things about living on the coast is the proximity of the beach. Its calm. Its quiet. Not overrun by spring-breakers, tourists or celebrities. Its just what a southern beach should be. And although I live less than 25 minutes from the beach, it is the one place I have never had a photoshoot. If I had to be completely honest, the idea of a beach shoot terrifies me. All my life as a kid watching horror/scary/suspenseful movies made me scared of the dark. Afterwards I wanted to turn on all the lights in the house and sleep curled up under my comforter with my favorite stuffed animal wrapped under my arm. I would go into the bathroom and double-check behind the shower curtain just in case my future murderer was hiding behind it. Melodramatic? Maybe. However, this is the same type of fear that overcomes me when I think of shoots on the beach. So when my sister approached me about doing a late afternoon shoot at the beach, I literally shook down to my toes. But with the mindset that this was the year to begin pushing and challenging myself, I obligingly took on the task.
The day of the shoot arrived, I drove to the beach, walked down the ramp, saw the sun glaring overhead and momentarily had every fear realized. I walked up the beach to where I was to meet my sister and knew that I had to get it together.
Which leads me to the point of this post: to answer the question that I received regarding how I approach technically challenging photoshoots.
50mm; f/2.0; 1/8000
When I arrived at the spot where my sister wanted to shoot, I took a wide survey of the location. My eyes immediately gravitated toward the large lifeguard stand shown below. The sun was no longer straight overhead so it cast a large shadow that afforded me a nice space of open shade. The sand itself created a natural reflector which bounced a soft glow back onto their faces.
24mm; f/4.0; 1/400
This little area of open shade become my best friend. The key to working within a tight space is to try and utilize as many different angles so that your resulting images are as varied as possible. I shot laying down, looking up, looking down....as many possible angles as I could without losing the use of the shade.
(left) 50mm; f/2.0; 1/4000 / (right) 95mm; f/4.0; 1/400
I'm happy with the result of this shoot, and hope that my explanation helped shed some light (no pun intended) on my approach to shooting.
