Capture Precious Moments with Babies and Toddlers Beach Photography
Beach Photography
Sand, water, and sun are three elements that make the beach a perfect venue for some photo shoot. Add life to an inspiring background with babies or toddlers around. These young people are perfect subjects with their innocence and high spirits. They grace timeless picturesque shots of innocent faces in natural environment.
The beach with its elements can trigger the playful attitudes within babies and kiddies alike. They can build sand castles, battle with splashing waters, or run along the shore. These comprise the picture-perfect moments that may sneak from time to time. Always gear up with a camera, ready to turn those smiles, giggles, laughs, and lively expressions into photos. Also, keep in mind that there should be someone looking after their welfare. This setting can also mean threat to safety and protection during the babies and toddlers beach photography shoot.
Fill Flash
Babies and toddlers beach photography may involve distractions. Ensure that the kids are comfortable and at home with the sand, water, and sun. Along with this concern, comes the scenic distraction. Though, most digital cameras have auto-sensors and auto-settings to adjust automatically with the beach lighting, photographs often turn out being underexposed.
There are techniques to solve this problem. One of which is the fill flash, a photographic technique commonly used when the background is brighter than the babies and toddlers or the subjects. With the fill flash technique, the camera’s flash is utilized to balance the exposure and to lighten dark shadows, but if not careful enough, the photograph may end up being washed out with the white flash.
Bracketing
Another classic technique is called bracketing. Bracketing is taking multiple shots with different settings. With this, a beach photographer can choose the perfect shot from different exposures. This can also be done manually by adjusting the aperture and the f/stop. This aperture refers to the opening or the eye of the camera lens. The size of the aperture depends on the f/stop setting. The ideal f/stop for beach photography is either f/16 or f/22, depending on how bright the background is. Remember that the lower the f/stop, the lesser light is admitted.
Rule of Thirds
The “Rule of Thirds” is a practice applied in visual arts specifically in painting, design and of course, photography. It is done by having intersecting imaginary lines dividing the camera screen into nine squares in 3 columns by 3 rows. Most people take photos of the beach by placing the subjects right in the middle of the frame but with this practice, it guides the photographer to at least move the subject on the intersecting lines providing the more appealing beach background shots.
Point and Shoot Cameras
Luckily, most point and shoot or compact cameras today allow manual setting adjustments. You can set your point and shoot camera to “beach mode”. Beach mode works best when the background is so bright, it lightens the picture giving the subject enough exposure and prevents the silhouette effect. However, don’t lose hope if you have a 100% automatic point and shoot camera because you can still take good photos but you have to make sure that the sun is behind you, otherwise, you’ll get silhouette photos. There is another trick left to get a good shot with the bright light. This time you can fool the camera by setting your automatic point and shoot camera down facing the beach sand. Then press the lock exposure button and tilt your camera up to your baby or toddler to capture the photo. Since the camera reads a darker scene, it automatically provides more light to the subject even with the bright background.
Enjoy!
If you head to the beach to spend time with your family, then make photography fun with them. It is not necessary to ask the toddlers to stop from playing or swimming at the beach just to pose for your camera shots. The beach as a natural setting flows perfectly with candid kids photography. Have a break in taking inanimate subjects and natural views, give also some of your precious time to remember the day with a family beach photography.
Beach photography is not only for kids but also a great setting for wedding photography. Before you head to the beach, make sure you know the 4 things your digital camera hates about summer in order to protect it from damage.
