Jeff

Our Favorite Photographs from Marco Island

Marco Island is a fantastic place for a family vacation. Perfect weather, beautiful beaches, friendly people — who could ask for more? Well, you could ask for a great photographer to make your family portrait.

My name is Jeff Carsten. I’ve been a professional photographer since 1997, and have photographed thousands of families and children, first in my Charlotte studio, and now on Marco Island.

It seems like lots of good amateur photographers want to shoot professionally — not just for the money, but because they love photography. I’ve trained many of them, as basic technical skills are mandatory. But technical skills alone won’t make an amateur into a good family photographer. The most important factor in the equation is the attitude of the subjects. A relaxed, natural, happy subject is what makes for great portraits. If you are happy and having a great tine while I am taking your picture, then I have done the best job possible.

Marco Island beach portraits are not just a slice of time, not just a remembrance of a really great experience, instead they will be a family treasure.

Here are some of my favorites from 2018/2019:

The Secret To Photographing Children

A Gift for Grandma

When all the Grandchildren are at Grandma’s house at the beach, it’s a wonderful time for a group portrait. Of course, Grandma wants a sunset photo on the beach. The time frame for this kind of shot is very short. The window of good light is only about 10 minutes, and getting all these girls posed and stable only allows for one chance — you’ve got to get the shot, and the kids have to all look happy at the same time. Yikes!

What’s the secret?

Continue reading →

The Value of Professional Display Prints

“Good parents don’t let their children grow up to be JPEGs”

How many family photos are on your phone now? Hundreds? Thousands? Have you sorted through them to create an archival folder of the very best photos of your family? No? So why would you want another 100 JPEGs in your pictures folder?

In an era of media overload and ubiquitous phone usage, it is our opinion that a really well done family photo session deserves a better ending than 100 mass produced JPEGs for your laptop and phone. They need to retouched, printed, and displayed in your home, and they will be heirlooms that will grow in value as the years pass and the family changes.

Continue reading →

2018 Marco Island Favorites

The 2017/2018 season was pure joy for Gail and me. It was almost perfect weather for the entire 4 moth season, except for a bit of chilliness early in December. You can tell how unusual “chilly” is when you try to buy a sweater on the island. — “all sold out”! But after 12/15 it was beautiful all season — 80° and bright sun — perhaps 3 days of rain that caused us to reschedule our Marco Island Beach Portrait sessions. We had some wonderful clients (but we always have wonderful clients) and made some amazing portraits on the Marco Island beach. In addition, we had an enormous family reunion and some members of the family could’t walk out on the beach, so we photographed the family at Mackle Park and had some outstanding results. It’s hard to select “the best” of the season to share with you, as each family has their own personality, but here are our favorites from the season:

The Rewarding Part of Professional Photography

Amidst all the concern for technical proficiency, lighting and backgrounds, poses, processing, marketing and running a business, it’s easy to forget what a grand reward it can be to touch peoples’ hearts with your portraits.

Recently we had a portrait session at the beach, and the client really liked the portraits, giving us a nice order for wall portraits and gift prints. Then today I received the following email:

“Thank you so much for the beautiful pictures you took of our family in Naples. My family surprised me with them and I will treasure them forever. What you don’t know is that I have stage 4 lung cancer and have never smoked a day in my life. I was diagnosed a little over a year ago and was only given 1 to 2 years to live. I am doing treatment and praying for a bit more time with my family. My favorite place to be is the ocean and so my family has been doing an awesome job getting me there as much as possible. Being from the Midwest hasn’t been good for my health so being at the beach with the ocean air always makes me feel better. Thanks again for the time you gave us and the awesome pictures you gave my family that they can always hold onto even after I am gone.”

After I responded to her email, she sent me this:

“I know you are very busy and I didn’t expect a reply. I just wanted you to know how treasured your photos are to my entire family! Thanks for capturing family love in your work for all the families you photograph. I would be honored to be a part of your blog. Thank you again for the photographs”

This makes me pause and give thanks for good health, creative freedom, and family. I can find no higher reward than serving my clients with my portraits. This is a blessing.

Mistakes to Avoid When Shooting Landscapes and Scenics

Serge Ramelli recently posted a video about the mistakes he made when he was just starting his photography journey. I’ve augmented his posting to apply to our photography in SW Florida. As I review images from the members of the group, I am seeing many of these issues, so I thought I would give you some insight into the problems.

Here are some mistakes many inexperienced photographers make:

Shooting at the wrong time. Most photos are much better at sunset or sunrise.
Shooting clouds and water without an ND filter. Photos are much more interesting if there is some motion blur. Even 2 second exposures of the Gulf are more interesting than short ones. Clouds become streaky and dramatic at 30 seconds. Both scenes become otherworldly at 3~5 minutes.
Shooting at night without a tripod. DUH! You can’t handhold at slow shutter speeds, and if you use a shutter speed that allows handholding, your pictures will be very noisy (due to high ISO tradeoff) or very dark (exceeding the maximum aperture of the lens). With a long exposure, you can make distracting people disappear.
Not composing the elements of the photo to communicate a message. You need to isolate your subject. Eliminate distracting elements. Recompose for the best effects. Avoid high contrast compositions.
Shooting scenes with high contrast. Avoid direct sunlight and shadows in the same frame. See #1 above.
Shooting in JPEG rather than RAW. Your processing options are greatly increased when you start with a RAW file. Shooting JPEG means the camera bakes in the settings on your file; shooting RAW means you determine the settings that you want.
Allowing your files to default to the computer’s built-in photo processing program. iPhoto will not process RAW files. Once the files have been imported into the default program, they are stored deep within the computer’s hard drive, and do not have a logical nomenclature. It is better to import your photos directly into Lightroom, naming and sorting them in LR. The very best system is to establish your own filing system and import your photos to your own files on your computer or an external hard drive. Then you can import your favorites into Lightroom for processing, and output your finished JPEGs back into the filing system you use for importing. They are your pictures; you should keep control of them.

Ft. Myers Beach Portraits at the Ft. Myers Beach Pier

One of the nice things about photographing a beach portrait at Ft Myers Beach is the beautiful, iconic Ft. Myers Beach Pier. This is one of the most recognizable landmarks in SW Florida, and it make a wonderful background for a family photograph at the beach. A beach portrait at Ft. Myers beach is a wonderful way to capture the love and spirit of your family.

Our session fee is only $75, and that entitles you to a full 1 hour session, with no limit on the number of pictures we take. After the session, we will edit your collection down to about 5 photos per pose, and come to your vacation home the next day with color corrected JPEGs and a 37″ monitor so you can see the details up close. And again this season, we will give you — free— a copy of the digital master of every image that we retouch and print for you. If you want the color corrected digital JPEG images, we can make these files available to you as well.

A Marco Island Beach Portrait at Sunset

Marco Island has some of the best sunsets in the business. But Marco Island beach portraits have a short window of available light. About 15 minutes before sunset, the light is perfect for a Marco Island photograph of the family at the beach at sunset. Before then, the light is too harsh for a great family portrait. Here’s what a nice Marco Island beach portrait looks like:

This is really beautiful light, and the sunset makes for a memorable Marco Island beach portrait.

But what to do if you want more than just a couple of shots? We are fortunate to have a great area at Residents’ Beach to photograph family portraits in a lush setting, although not right on the beach. Just off the side of the pavilion is a shady area with beautiful lush palm trees and flower gardens on the grounds of Residents’ Beach. Family portraits taken at this Marco Island location still have the “Florida feeling”, even if they are not right on the sand.

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: