Outer Banks Beach Portraits | Family Portraits | Nags Head, North Carolina

It's January! And here I am writing a blog post about Outer Banks Beach Portraits. You'd think it'd be way too early to start talking about those, but it seems like our inquiries and reservations start earlier and earlier for family beach portraits each year. I wanted to share a few things as we enter 2019 on how to prep your family so that we can provide your group with the best outer banks beach portrait experience. Here are a few tips!Keep in mind that we only photograph beach portrait sessions early in the morning or 1 hour before sunset. This is so the we can offer your family the absolute best lighting for photos. You have to remember there is NO SHADE on the beach whatsoever, the unbelievable number of rainbow umbrellas and beach tents lined up on the beach that can't be magically photoshopped out, the heat and humidity can be unbearable, the squinting, the sweating, the sand sticking to you... sounds like a recipe for disaster right? These are just a few of the reasons why we insist on early morning (sunrise) or later in the evenings! The light is soft and pretty and the bulk of your beach combers have retreated for the day.  As a general rule, summer beach portraits are ideally shot around 7:00PM (depending on the month) We know this can be SO hard on your little guys as many of your kids have early bed times! So here are a few helpers to help you get through the evening beach portrait session:

1. Don't run your kids ragged the day of your photography session! ( I COULD NOT POSSIBLY STRESS THIS ENOUGH!) An all-day-beach-day in the heat and sun probably isn't the best idea if you want happy smiles and good attitudes at 7:00PM.
2. Plan ahead and NAP THEM UP! Trust me, you'll want your little guys to be well rested so that way we can can shoot their photos first and get them out of the way incase we have any unplanned meltdowns! We always shoot the sub families with the most temperamental kids first (immediately after the large group photo) for this very reason!
3. Bringing snacks or your kids favorite treat isn't a bad idea either!!

This is YOUR investment, and we want this to be a fun and enjoyable experience for your family while you're on vacation! With that being said: Leave all of your personal cameras and cellphones back at the vacation house! You won't need them! Remember you've hired us to take the photos! And a big part of your beach portrait (once the formalities are over) is for us to be able to candidly capture you family at their most vulnerable and real selves... We won't be able to do that when 6 people in your group have their cell phones or personal DSLR's in their hand.And finally the last thing I want to touch on is the type of photos we take and the overall flow of how you can expect your outer banks family portrait session to play out!

1. Formalities first! (always!) We will always start with the traditional large group shot first! After that, we'll break your group down into the individual sub families and shoot each of those.  And like we mentioned before, those of you with the youngest or most temperamental kids will go immediately after the large group photo!
2. What we cover! You can expect us to photograph the traditional large group photo, the individual sub families, just the kids, the grandparents and the kids, (really whatever formal grouping you would like us to arrange) and then finally the last 20 mins of the session we photograph your more candid photos.
3. Dunes, then water! The last thing we want is one of your kids to get wet before the session is over or before we're ready for those photos. So we always work our way down from the dunes to the shore line.
4. Finally the candids! Once our formalities are over we slide right into the candids! This is a variation of anything from walking down the beach, the kids playing or running, sand castle building, splashing, laughing, or just general silliness. You will find that we do often step in during this time as it's important to us that you always look your best (and unfortunately candid and natural isn't always photogenic) so we're here to help prompt you look like your most natural self :)