We generally make it a point to avoid using the beach for portrait sessions. As much as we love working barefoot in the breeze, the beach has been done when it comes to portraits. It can be tough to find new ways to use your environment, and lots of our usual location tricks for dodging hard sunlight won't fly...

But sometimes... it all works out.

The Hatten family moved to town a few months ago from Australia, stumbled upon our site, and dropped us a line. They wanted portraits and seemed keen on the beach, so we gave it a go. We really couldn't have asked for better subjects. Look at them! Incredible people, beautiful, and lots of fun.

We love shooting one-on-one portraits. We always try to do these before the group shots; it makes it more comfortable to assemble everyone when you know their names and had a chance to warm them up individually! Here are the kids, who are soooo easy to shoot. They just can't be made to look less than awesome:

We shot at Cardiff State Beach, behind the restaurants. This time of year, we usually have plenty of marine layer to soften up the light, but on this particular morning, it literally chose to avoid us by about a quarter mile in each direction! For the single portraits, we chose to sort that out by shooting straight into the sun, from down low. The sun is sitting behind the kids' heads in each of the above frames. Makes a serious impact... blows out the sky, really makes the subject 'pop,' and lights up their hair in a really neat way. Best of all, no hard shadows on the faces!

After that, we took advantage of the fact that Charlie's (an eatery we quite liked!) has closed down, and we shot a bunch of stuff on their now-abandoned patio. The building had some really neat colors and worn-down wood.

At any rate, big thanks to the Hatten family for finding us and for suggesting the beach. The location couldn't have been better! We had a great time and really loved spending the morning with all of them!