BILL POTTS P H O T O G R A P H Y Lake City, Florida

Professional Photographer for Lake City and all of Florida

Blog: This installment - shooting on the beach

I recently had the opportunity to run down to Naples and work with the folks at JenniBikini. They were updating their images for their catalog and we were one of a few photographers selected to help with that project. Now, as many of you know, getting good pictures in the bright harsh light at the beach can be a challenge. It is no different for the pro’s. The same challenges present themselves to us too. We were in Naples, which is on the west coast, shooting call time was 10 am. To have the water in the background would put the sun at my back, which is good, but it would also cause the model to squint - which is bad. A good way to fix this is to use a scrim. Unfortunately, we could not do that. The area we were in was very narrow and very public. I was unable to have additional people holding a large scrim to block the direct sunlight. I needed to come up with another way to capture the images and make sure they looked good.

Here is what I came up with. I would have the model at a slight angle to the beach. This would put the sun just out of her eyes. But now I get harsh shadows in areas we do not want shadows and the background was blown out when I exposed correctly for the model. By using neutral density and polarizer filters, I was able to get the deep blues from the sky and water that I wanted. Now the model would be practically silhouetted. Using Alien Bees lighting, I filled the model with light to create the light and shadows where I wanted them. I started out using a large softbox with gold inserts, however I did not like the look, so I simply removed the softbox and put on a small, 7” reflector. Setting the light to full power, gave me the look I was going for. What do you think? How did they come out? Click on contact us and let me know if you have any comments on this blog. -Bill