Monthly Archives: November 2016

Marco Island Beach Photographer: “Sure, what ever you want”

Jeff Carsten is the principle Marco Island Beach Photographer at Southern Light Photography. Our goal is simple: 100% customer satisfaction. We want our clients to be absolutely, positively overjoyed with their portraits. In that regard, we are nothing if not flexible.

Last winter one of our Marco Island Beach Photography clients suggested that we create their family portrait at their home rather than at the beach. There was a cranky baby in the family, and rain was right around the corner. So we said “sure — whatever you want is what we will do.”

So we set up lights and brought furniture around to the front of the house, and created this lovely family portrait:

After the portrait was made, one of the men asked if we could take his photo for a head shot. We said: “sure, whatever you want”, and created this business head shot for him:

The skies started to clear, and the client said, “Gee that was fun. Can we still shoot at the beach? So I said “sure, whatever you want” and set out for the beach.

The light was great and the family was comfortable with the process, and we we created this wonderful Marco Island Beach portrait for them:

Which one did they like best? They couldn’t decide, so they bought wall portraits of both: one for their home up north, and one for their home in Florida. The client got what they wanted and more, and we didn’t charge them anything additional for the double session. I believe that if the portraits are really outstanding, the client will find room for them in the home. There is no better use of wall space than a family portrait!

How to Select a Naples Beach Photographer for your Family Portrait

A portrait of your family and kids at the beach can be an heirloom you will cherish for life.

Make sure you select the right Naples beach photographer.

Use the internet as early as possible. Good Naples beach photographers book up quickly. Search for “Naples Beach Photographer”
Call the photographer. E-mail and text don’t tell you much about him. If no one answers the phone, expect a call-back within 24 hours. Sometimes we have all-day projects. If no call-back, don’t call again.
How long has he/she been in business? How many beach portrait sessions? Any other experience? A competent Naples photographer will have shot lots of sessions in Naples over a period of several years. Beware of young shooters with limited experience.
Ask how/when she shoots the portraits. Sunlight at the beach is radioactive — how does he handle it? The only time to shoot portraits at the beach is when the sun is very low — 30 minutes before sunset, or 30 minutes after sunrise.
Ask to see samples of his work — especially a complete session. Anybody can be lucky enough to get half a dozen decent photos for the website. Good photographers have a consistent style that results in a large number of great shots from each session. If he won’t show you samples, move on.
How does the work look? Is the lighting smooth and the skin tones soft, or are there strong shadows and high contrast? Is there a halo around the hair? Most importantly, how are the expressions? Happy and real, or forced?
Is the photographer interested in you? Does he ask you about your family?
Will he give you the product you want, be it prints, digital files, or some combination of both?
Does he color-correct and density-balance the digital files, or give them to you right out of the camera? Does he retouch the prints?
And finally, what do you get for your money? How much is the session fee? How much are prints? How much for digital files? How much does the average family spend?
Here’s the kind of guy you are looking for:

(PS — That’s me, Jeff Carsten, a Naples Beach Photographer photographed in the Chicago studio)

The Secret to Great Family Reunion Beach Portraits

For many families, the reunion at the beach is a big deal. Everybody together at one time, in an idyllic setting, enjoying each other — truly a once in a lifetime experience. But getting everybody together for a family portrait can be a chore, and not everyone in the family approaches the experience with a great attitude. Everyone wants the irreplaceable portrait of the whole family, but a portrait of stiff and serious people isn’t going to cut it. The beach is a place to unwind and have fun, and the family portrait should reflect not only the presence of the family members, but the personality and relationship of the family members. There is a huge difference between recording an event and capturing emotion. And those emotions have to be real, even if they are not conventional “smiles”.

Here’s the secret: your photographer has to interact with your family members, and that requires eye contact. If your photographer has his eye in the camera viewfinder, there is only so much that she can do to get you happy. She can talk to you, but that’s about it. The secret is for the photographer to get out from behind the camera. To do that, he has to use a tripod, and a remote control shutter release. This technique allows the photographer to move — whether it’s to jump in and tickle a surly toddler, point at Grandpa and ask something foolish, break out a rubber chicken, put on a clown nose. . . generally play the excited clown role until the group lightens up and begins to laugh. And when you have laughter, you can capture true happiness. From a photographer’s standpoint, we know that expression is what it’s all about, especially with the kids.

So why don’t more photographers use this technique? Maybe they don’t know technically how to do it. But it’s probably because they don’t have enough experience dealing with Moms looking at proofs of the session. It’s the kiss of death to hear “that’s not his real smile”, but it takes hundreds of sessions to figure out how to get the smiles that make your heart skip a beat when you see them in pictures. That’s the kind of portrait you want.