Extended Family Beach Portrait Session
This is what you can expect.
Hopefully the day of the extended family beach portrait session it is a sunny and calm day at the beach. Our photographers like to come to your beach house or rental about fifteen minutes before your beach session. Whether it’s Long Beach Island, Sea Girt or Manasquan arriving prior to the session is important. We like to do this so everybody gets to know the photographer. This is especially helpful if there are small kids involved. It’s important for children to meet the photographer prior to getting to the beach. Often children are a little standoffish but they often aren’t as much when they are on their home turf. Even if it’s a rental they realize that this is their home turf. Usually, children under four need a little time to warm up to a stranger.
One of the most important jobs for the photographer
This is one of the most important jobs for the photographer. If the photographer isn’t able to get the children to be comfortable then the rest of the session probably won’t go very smooth. We can honestly say it always goes pretty smooth. Because we meet the children first at the house the transition to the beach is much easier. By the time the children get to the beach, they feel like they know the photographer and laugh at the silly things the photographer does. Like throwing up Woody in the air from Toy Story and the doll hits the photographer in the head. This may sound awful, but kids love seeing adults acting like they are in pain.
The photographers will do a lot of other types of shenanigans to get small children to laugh. It’s also proof that laughter is contagious. When the small kids are laughing the older kids, parents and grandparents can’t seem to laugh themselves. This creates truly authentic expressions. You will quickly learn why we are so good at what we do and that it’s not about the camera.
The above portrait is an example of what you can expect with the grouping of your extended family beach portrait session.
The little kids get a second wind.
We understand that you are worried that your child might be too tired by the start of your beach portraits session. However, we can say it always works out.
One of the major concerns when family books there extended family beach portrait session portrait when they have small children is the time of the session. The only drawback with beach sessions is that you can’t do them whenever you like as you can a studio portrait session. The best time of day to do a beach portrait session is an hour before sunset. Which means the time is different depending on the time of year.
Sunset is late in July
Early July this mean 7:30 Pm and the sessions usually last an hour. So we understand your concern if you have a child up to six years old. However, if you start any earlier, even thirty minutes earlier the sun will be too bright and there won’t be any way an adult will be able to look into the camera never mind a child. In New Jersey, the sun will be set right into your face. Starting early will make for awful lighting, squinty eyes, and a bad experience for you. This is why an hour before sunset is best.
The little kids always get a second wind when they arrive at the beach. Maybe they just realize that this extended family beach portrait session is important to grandma and grandpa. The once tired child gets rejuvenated just enough to get all the portraits taken that we need with them. Then we will photograph the rest of the session with the breakdowns of the family grouping where the youngest kids aren’t involved. We always do all the portrait the younger kids are in first. With the multiple generation portraits, we always do all these different breakdowns.
- Largest Group
- Grandparents with the grandchildren
- Just the grandchildren
- Each individual family
- Siblings together
- Kids separate
- Portrait of just the grandparents
- The original family prior to grand-kids
- and whatever other combinations that you want
As you can see there’s a lot involved besides showing up to the beach and taking some pictures. For the photographer it often seems more like psychology then it does photography. This is what makes it fun. Click here for our contact information.