Light Techniques

Beach Scene Photography

Summertime is usually associated with outdoor activities like picnics in the park and a day at the beach. The brilliant blue skies and gorgeous scenery is usually something that stays in our memories long after we have washed the sand from our swim suit or put away our picnic basket. This is the reason that many people try to take good photographs of their days at the beach, but the conditions are not usually all that conducive for excellent images.

Why is that? Well, interestingly enough the brilliant and uninterrupted sunlight at the beach, along with the incredible reflection from the sand and the water, can make it hard to get a camera to record things properly. Most equipment uses automatic sensors and settings that adjust to the existing light and a majority of beach scenes end up being underexposed.

Luckily there are many ways to overcome such problems. The most popular is a technique known as “fill flash”. This simply introduces the brilliant flash on the subject and fills in any areas where darkness and shadow would make the image a failure. Unfortunately, this can often lead to some subjects looking overexposed or washed out.

To combat this sort of problem a photographer can try several things. The first is to back up from their subject and use the zoom to tightly frame the image, when they fire the flash on this version of the photograph it is likely that no overexposure will occur.

Alternately they could also ask their camera to really do all of the work as well. A majority of modern digital cameras are equipped with “spot” meters that allow the photographer to tell the camera which part of the image they want the settings to work from. This can prevent many common problems with beach scenes.

Another frequent problem with beach scenes is simply that they end up being wide open scenes with little focal interest or with sloping horizons. So, this means that a good photographer is going to compose their beach scenes to have focal points in close proximity to the lens or balanced in the scene. This will eliminate any chance for too much horizon, particularly when the photographer is looking to “tell a story” in the frame as well.

Finally, anyone hoping to get the best photographs from a day at the beach should use a classic technique known as “bracketing” which will ensure that they get a usable version of every photograph they take – some cameras automatically do this, but anyone with a manual camera can adjust their f/stops up and down a single setting to assure themselves success.