10
Preparing For Your Beach Portrait
by Leo ·
1. When picking your clothes, wear solid neutral colors, no wild prints, stripes or plaids (your eyes tend to look at the clothes, not the subjects). A couple or group should be the same or complimentary in style and color clothing. Typical clothing choices include White tops with khaki pants, white tops with jeans, or try black tops with jeans.
2. If at all possible, try to wear long sleeves (people in general don’t like how their arms look in a portrait). Also try to wear Capri’s or long pants or long skirts or dresses, unless you have really great looking legs and want to show them off (people generally don’t like how their legs look in a portrait either). Kids can get away with shorts and short sleeves. Little girls look great in long flowing sundresses and so will their mothers and aunts.
3. Try to wear a neutral toenail polish if any; you will be barefoot on the beach (bright colors really stand out).
4. Avoid using lotion on the skin, as it tends to attract sand and will be difficult to brush off. You will get sandy as most poses you will probably be seated.
6. Wind and breeze on the beach are common place. Hair will sometimes not look perfect or lay down straight. We suggest hair products that will keep your hair under control under those conditions.
7. Bring Bug repellant. People swatting flies do not photograph as well as you would think.
8. Makeup should be kept as natural as possible, but do place emphasize on your eyes and lips. Try not to get too sunburned; it’s not the greatest look for a portrait. A great tan photographs very warm, but once again, don’t over do that either. White strips are great to lighten and whiten teeth.
9. Sunset is my favorite time of day for beach portraits, and the best time to create your beach portrait. We usually try to meet with you about an hour and a half before sunset to make sure everyone is there and we’re ready to go. If you have young children, try to do the best you can working around naptime, and dinnertime for them.
10. Please bring a snack and juice for the kids, water for the adults is OK too.
11. If inclement weather occurs, we will do our best to reschedule your session the next available day if possible. We realize that some families are only in town for one week or in many cases less and we are working with a tight time frame. Therefore we suggest booking your portrait session as early in the week as possible so we have options to reschedule if necessary.