What to Consider When Booking a Morning Key West Beach Family Portrait
When I get a call for a family portrait session, usually the first request is for it to take place at sunset. But not always! The two most common reasons I get for a “non-sunset” shoot is for families with younger kids, who tend to be in better spirits earlier in the day, and the other reason is cruise ship visitors.
Because Key West is a cruise ship port of call for companies like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Princess, Disney, and Celebrity, we see a lot of visitors come in for the day off the cruise ships whose itinerary will not allow for them to stay until sunset.
In both cases, we then opt for a morning or midday shoot. Because there is often a worry that taking photos this time of day means not being able to get good photos, I wanted to share an example from a recent session, specifically a
Mid-Morning Key West Family Shoot at Fort Zachary Taylor State Park
The trick to shooting in the morning is knowing where your light is coming from. If we know the sun will still be peeking up over the Australian Pines that line the walkways of Fort Zach, then we can start in the more shaded areas along the footpaths, where the background is well lit, but you are able to stand in a shaded area and not get blaring sun in your face.
One of my favorite things to do with a morning shoot is incorporate the natural “flare” that comes from a high sun position. At certain angles, I’m able to capture streaks of beautiful light that you can’t get at other times of day (or, at least you can’t get them in that specific spot).
Here you can see another example of using the light very strategically. The family are standing on the shaded walking path, while the sun is illuminating the fortress and the foliage behind them. It makes for a really pretty effect!
Where we run into the most challenge is on the beach, where we don’t have the tree-cover to provide a clever block against the bright light. For this area, I pull out a very strong off-camera flash, which illuminates your faces and reduces the dreaded “racoon eyes”. If you are in the process of interviewing photographers in Key West for a midday or morning shoot, definitely ask them if they use off-camera light. Natural-light photographers have a beautiful style as well, but they’ll have a harder time combating the shadows unless they bring large reflectors and scrims (technical terms for just other ways of shaping light).
The kids often have a harder time with the bright sun, so I let them use the beach as more of a playground, let them make silly faces, let them make “binoculars” (to shield their eyes) for cute non-traditional images, and for those times that I really DO need them smiling with eyes open, I do a “ready, set, open” technique that allows them to keep their eyes shut while we get everyone into position, then open their eyes only for the split second that I need to take the photo. This works and I often have parents comment that they can’t believe we were able to get “open eye” photos, but it works!
For a morning or midday shoot, I also position my clients so that they are facing away from the sun, and I am shooting into it. I will suffer for you! LOL
In these images where the clients are seated, the sun is pretty high, slightly off to the left of the frame, and further behind them. I use a lens shield to keep the glare down, and what we get ends up being a nice-looking crisp and beautiful image:
I hope you enjoyed this sample of a Mid-Morning family portrait session in Key West.