Beach Wedding Photography

If you are thinking of having your big day at the beach, you might want to check out beach wedding photography services to use on your special day. Having great photos to remind you of this wonderful and ecstatic occasion is a must. You would not want to not let this memorable moment in your life just slip away, would you? That is why it is important to look for a reputable beach wedding photography company to help you with all of this.

Your wedding day can be made really extraordinary with the help of people around you. You could hire a wedding organizer so that you could get an expert's advice on everything - the best beach to have the wedding, the types of decorations to use, the beach wedding photography service to contact, the food to serve, and a lot more.

Beach Photography Tips

Have you ever been on a beach holiday and thought it would be a good idea to take thousands of photographs to remember how beautiful it was, only to be disappointed with the final result? I'll bet you took a portrait of your loved one only for the shot to turn them into a dark shadow or it left them with harsh black shadows on their faces. Please don't worry, you are not the worst photographer in the world, this problem is quite common.

Photography can be tricky in the bright light of day, especially in a hot, reflective place like the beach but it is not impossible. If you adhere to a few of the following tips, you will find that your photography on the beach will most definitely improve.

1.USE YOUR FLASH! I know it sounds odd to recommend flash photography in broad daylight but this is a technique of all professional photographers. It's called "fill in flash". And it does just that: it fills in all those dark shadows! Fill in flash really only works if you are close to you subject as a flash does not illuminate too far from the light source. So, a perfect time to use fill in flash is if you are taking a portrait and you have the bright sky in the background, for example. Turn the flash on. Focus as normal. Take the photo as per normal. It is that simple. If you find that your subject is a little "washed out", try turning the flash down (if you have an external flash) or if not, simply just take a step or two back from your subject and try again. The photo should turn out with a well exposed background and your subject's face should be well lit with no harsh shadows. Fill in flash is also perfect to use when your subject has a hat on, to stop the hat covering their face with a dark shadow.

2. CHOOSE YOUR TIME OF DAY WELL! Obviously, the brightest and hottest part of the day gives the most problems with photography exposure. Therefore I would recommend taking photos in the early morning and the late afternoon. The light at this time of day is somewhat filtered, is therefore not as harsh and gives lovely tones. It also creates a moodier feeling in the photo. And once again, it prevents to some degree those dark shadows (do you get the feeling that I don't like shadows?).

3. TAKE A PHOTO OF ONE SPECIAL THING! When you're at the beach the temptation is to just snap away and take photos of just the beach. That's great if you want to end up with 548 holiday snaps of the same thing! Make your holiday photos something interesting. Focus on one subject. Don't take a photo of your kids off in the distance playing on the sand. How about taking an up close shot of them, building a sandcastle, their little faces deep in concentration as they build it higher and higher? Or what about some foot prints in the sand? A feather? A crab peaking out from it's home in the dunes? All these might sound like silly things to take a photo of, but when you have your photo album of your holiday made up, it creates a story of your time there, instead of just bland old images.

4. COMPOSE YOUR SHOT WELL! A well composed photograph draws the viewer in to a resting spot and makes them think. Plonking everything in the smack bang middle of your photo looks kind of drab and dull after a while. Okay, here's a little secret: you don't have to have a great camera to take great shots, it's all to do with composition. Example? Okay, to keep it simple, imagine you are taking a photo of the ocean. Instead of putting the horizon light right across the middle, imagine your viewfinder is divided by three equal parts. Now, put the horizon either on the bottom third or the top third line and suddenly the photo is all the more interesting. It draws the viewer.

Beach Photography

One of the most photographed scenes in the world is the beach scene. The reason is that (a) the locale is beautiful by nature, (b) people are usually relaxed and having fun and are not "stiff" and (c) a combination of the first two reasons. This means that beach photography can be either landscape or portrait photography or a combination of both.

Unlike most other forms of photography, beach photography is about movement. The water is always in motion and if this plays a major part in the composition, you have to be able to balance this movement with the stillness of the rest of the image. The best way to do this is to keep the amount of motion in mind. If there is crashing surf, you will be best served by limiting the amount of surf in your composition or it may overshadow the non moving parts. The less the water movement, the more of it you can include in your compositions.

In beach photography, light is not always your best friend. We are accustomed to seeing bright sunlight in beach photos. But remember that if there is white sand, it can cause a lot of glare and result in stark high contrast photos that do not capture the feel of the beach. As in all landscape photography, the best time to shoot is in the mornings and evening when the light hits the sand obliquely, resulting in less glare and harshness and thus warmer colors.

Don't despair if you are at the beach on a cloudy day. Using the "cloudy" setting on our camera you may be able to capture some great images that show the dramatic contrast between the gray clouds and water. Try taking black and white photos. And if it's not totally overcast, cloud formations against a blue sky with blue water in the foreground can result in dramatic effects.

When photographing objects or people on the beach, remember that you have a long flat unending background. Keep the focus on the subject and allow only as much background as is required for setting the tone or mood of the picture. Trying to do a "half and half" usually results in not doing justice to either the landscape or the subject.

If you are trying to capture just the openness of the beach, use a wide angle lens. The small lens will exaggerate the perspective and result in the background seeming to stretch away into the distance and thereby add a 3 dimensional effect to your photo. If you are shooting up the beach, the wide angle lens will let you keep everything, from the water in front of you to the rocky headland in the distance, in focus. If you want a person or object in the image to add a sense of perspective, remember that the wide angle lens will make the object seem more distant than it really is so compensate for this by moving closer to it.

Beach photography is really all a matter of perspective and the best way to learn how to use the flatness of the land and water to your advantage is to keep experimenting with distances and depth of field.