Portrait

Family Beach Portraits at Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Stanton Family

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Visiting from Alabama the Stanton Family on Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D80 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/125th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame left & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame rightAll day it was overcast.  Then at 5:30pm it rained.  However, by our family beach portrait session time of 7:50pm the skies were clear and the sun emerged providing an excellent backdrop for the Stanton Family's photographs on Sunset Beach, Treasure Island, St. Petersburg, Florida.  I have mostly been pretty lucky with weather regarding sunset photo shoots.  The streak continued yesterday.

Sisters having fun on Sunset Beach, Treasure Island - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left @ 1/2 power & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame rightI do not think I have ever seen kids remain as dry as the sisters above did when so close to the water's edge!  They were fun to photograph as they readily showed their sibling affection for each other.  I had my speedlights set in place to light them and dialed in the best shutter speed to pull in the remaining light from the sunset sky.

Father and daughters on Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50 @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame left & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame rightTheir father joined them for a sunset portrait of their own.  He did a good job of corraling them as there were starting to become more active!  I just made sure no one jumped in front of the setting sun as I was composing the shot.

Mother and daughters on Sunset Beach Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50 @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/2 power to frame left & SB-600 @ 1/2 power to frame rightOf course mom had to get in for a photograph of her own with her daughters.  With the setting sun as a constant deadline, it is important to have your lighting and camera settings dialed in so that you can quickly and easily move in new people for the next shot when shooting a sunset portrait session.  You can note that I used exactly the same settings for the above three shots:  f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th and the same strobist settings as well.  I believe I did not even change the speedlight positions either since both the mother and father got to the same eye level as their daughters.

It was a very fun family beach portrait session that went as smoothly as any I have ever photographed before and it was good to continue my lucky streak of avoiding rain!

Family Beach Portraits Sunset Beach Treasure Island St Petersburg Florida

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Vivid family sunset beach portraits on Treasure Island Florida - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 200 1/250th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightIt was great to see the Martineau Family again, who I first photographed back in the summer of 2010.  They were once again visiting from Pennsylvania with their three children.  We met at the same beach on Treasure Island, Sunset Beach, my favorite beach in all of Florida.  This is a great place for family beach portraits, and also skimboarding!

Pulling light from the sky long after the sun went down - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 640 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 to left & SB-600 to rightI was looking forward to seeing how much the children had grown in the past two years.  The most noticable growth was of course with their youngest, and the fact that he could now talk and his favorite words appear to be "alligator golf."

Cartwheel sunset beach skills! - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 to frame left & SB-600 to frame rightBeing a Thursday evening in late April Sunset Beach was mostly free of tourists and locals as well so we pretty much had the entire half-mile strip of beach to ourselves.  The only passersby were some water birds.

Family running on the beach having fun - Nikon D300 Nikkor 80-200mm @ f/4 ISO 500 1/500th natural lightLast time we made a very similar shot to the one above with the family running and laughing down the shoreline.  The biggest difrerence this year was that it was a cloudless sky, whereas two years ago a storm was just upon to fall on the beach providing a dramatic cloudy sky for a background.

Siblings having fun on the beach - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/80th Strobist: SB-800 to left & SB-600 to rightThe cloudless sky helped me be able to make shots well after the sun went below the horizon and still pull some color out of the twilight sky.

Family beach portrait watching the sunset - Nikon D300 Tamron 17-50mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/100th Strobist: SB-800 to left SB-600 to rightI was very glad to be able to continue to be the Martineaus family photographer on their Florida visits and I look forward to their next visit!

Valentine's Day Photography Gift Packages Cape Coral Ft Myers Naples Florida

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Business Headshots done on location in your St. Petersburg office

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NEED A PROFESSIONAL HEADSHOT TO REPRESENT YOU?
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Help-Portrait 2011 St. Petersburg Florida behind the scenes

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Jam packed with photographers and gear getting ready to start Help-Portrait 2011 in St. Petersburg, FloridaToday was the third annual Help-Portrait global movement for providing free printed portraits as a way of giving back to those in need.  It was my first time to participate.  I did not know what to expect exactly as I was having a hard time imagining what it would look like with so many mini-studio setups in one place.  I was surprised to walk into the room and see the above scene . . . so much gear!

What Help-Portrait is all about - Nikon D300 Nikkor AF-S 24-70mm @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/60th Strobist: SB-800 @ 1/4 power & SB-600 @ 1/8 power behind shoot through umbrellasThis was the first family I had the opportunity to photograph this morning.  I always like to, when possible, have the family members be in contact with each other somehow, which is why I asked the boy on the right to put his hand on his little brother's shoulder.

Having fun having their portrait made at Help-Portrait 2011 St. Petersburg FloridaThe atmosphere in the room was great and there were big smiles all around.  It is really fun to make photographs in such an environment.  It was also a chance for me to see other photographer's portrait setups and learn a few things myself.

Help-Portrait photographer volunteers wearing t-shirts with the Help-Portrait logoWhen there was some time between photographing families we made portraits of ourselves with the other volunteers we met this day.  If you have a lighting setup and people standing around, photographs will get made!

One of the photographers from Help-Portrait with her own custom made Help-Portrait t-shirt!I really enjoyed being involved with Help-Portrait and hope to be able to do so again next year.  For more information about Help-Portrait please visit their official website.

Business Headshot Photography Maria in St. Petersburg Florida

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Headshot done right in the client's St. Petersburg Florida office - Nikon D300 with Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8D lens @ f/5.6 ISO 200 1/160th Strobist: SB-800 to frame right @ 1/4 power & SB-600 @ 1/8th power to frame left both pointing backwardsI met Maria in her office on 4th Street near downtown St. Petersburg for what I aim to be a "quick and painless" headshot.  My goal is to be in and out in less than 30 minutes so that making the headshot photograph does not take up much of the client's time.  On this occasion it went about as smoothly as it possibly could go because Maria was very well prepared and a great model for her headshot!

The headshot, or rather upper body headshot, was made right in her office using a blank wall as she wanted a plain background from which her graphic designer could easily manipulate the image to be used in various PR materials and on her business website.  This final image was delivered to Maria less than 12 hours after the shoot.