Shooting at the Beach

A couple of observations about shooting at the beach over the Christmas weekend:

1. Off-season is a great time to photograph a beach. It is much easier to get landscape and seabird shots when they are only a handful of people within sight of you along the beach.

2. On the other hand, the lack of people can also be detrimental. Sometimes it’s the lone figure that can help give the shot a sense of scope. Sometimes it’s fun to get some photos of people playing in the surf. You don’t get those in the Winter months!

3. Having shot beaches on both coasts, people on the West Coast have it easy. The sun sets over the ocean as opposed to rising on the East Coast. On the West Coast I could roll out to Ocean Beach in the evening, at Myrtle Beach you have to get up pretty early to really catch the sun out over the water!!

4. After you’ve gotten up and captured the sun coming up, and maybe taken a few other photos during the day, the beach is the beach. There are only so many pictures of the surf that I want to spend my time taking. Put the camera down and enjoy your beach vacation, or get off the beach and enjoy some of the surrounding area, like we did with Brookgreen Gardens.

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