John's Pass

John's Pass Madeira Beach Large 12-person Family Beach Portraits Florida

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Just the adults from a John's Pass Beach family portrait session - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThe weather was fine all day as I made my way to the beach at John's Pass to meet a 12-person family all from Canada for family beach portraits.  However, once on the beach there were storm clouds everywhere to the south, west and north, but none passed over until the shoot was finished.  Lucky again!  In this shoot I really tried to stress avoiding just having people line up side by side (the picket fence look) and asked for more hands on interaction, like in the above shot.  I placed the man in the pink shirt on the sand first, and then had everyone else stack on top of him.

Sisters having fun on Madeira Beach Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThese sisters needed no prompting to take up a more fun pose on the beach.  The challenge with them was getting them to do something not too crazy with each other!

Just the boys during this Madeira Beach family portrait session - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightOnly the guys in this shot and the best way to keep two active boys under somewhat control is to have them under wraps!

All twelve family members walking down Madeira Beach at John's Pass Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/4 ISO 800 1/500thThe whole 12-person family walking down the beach.  Overlap by someone walking too fast is a concern in these shots, so I instructed everyone to walk at the same pace and not get in front of each other.  By the second take they had gotten it down.

Cousins all stacked up on Madeira Beach family portraits Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/7.1 ISO 200 1/60th - Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightNothing like a small stack of cousins as the kids when on their own in front of the lens seemed to be more willing to smile and stay put.

The whole family portrait all 12 on Madeira Beach Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/8 ISO 200 1/200th - Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightThis was actually the first shot of the evening, everyone together in a large group shot by the sea grass.  Even in this type of shot I encouraged some overlap getting everyone to sit as close to each other as possible to show more emotional connection between the family.

DSLR Photography Lesson with Rosa at John's Pass

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Rosa getting a little help from a dolphin during our second DSLR photography lesson.

Rosa and I met for our second DSLR Photography Lesson at John's Pass Village (first lesson report).  The threat of rain loomed over the beginning of the lesson, but in the end we got lucky enough with the weather.

During this second lesson Rosa wanted to practice getting focus locks on moving objects.  Her son plays baseball and she has been impressing the other parents with some of her shots already, but wanted to get some further practice in.  Since her son's baseball season is over for the year already, we practiced on some birds flying around John's Pass Village instead.

Rosa and I waited for 5 minutes for this seagull to take off, but no enticing it from its perch without a food offering.

There were plenty of pelicans and seagulls flying around for focus target practice, as well as a few dolphins too.  Rosa using her Canon T1i did well getting the relatively small in frame birds in focus using her T1i's multi-point focus system.

After this we walked across the street from the village to the beach to have our first portrait practice.  I was the model for all of those shots so maybe Rosa will send one in to include later.  The overcast skies did not offer much natural light, but some sun rays did pop out a bit allowing for some natural light portrait practice.  I taught Rosa what focal lengths to use with what apertures to achieve the desired DoF for portraits.

Our luck did run out with the rain, but we were able to take cover without getting that wet which allowed us to practice low light portrait and landscape photography.  We even practiced using manual settings to properly expose the John's Pass Village streetscape with long two and three second exposures.  

I look forward to seeing the results of this lesson when Rosa makes portraits of her family over the Thanksgiving holiday!

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