How do I pose? I’m worried that I won’t know what to do with my body and end up looking not great.

Before the photo shoot, I will send you some poses for you to check. You can let me know which poses you want to try or send me your selection of poses you’ve seen elsewhere and that you like them. This makes the photo shoot smoother, it allows us to experiment with more poses and gives you the kind of photos that you like.

We will also improvise. If you choose the poses (at least some) beforehand, you will likely get more photos done. During one photo shoot, we can usually manage to try around 5-15 poses, some from your list, some improvised. If any particular pose is something that you want to do, let me know beforehand so that I make sure that we don’t skip that particular one.

I’ll always direct you to make sure that you look the best!

In which format do I receive the photos?

You get digital photos that you can download for 30 days.

If you order print(s), I usually need a day or two after retouching is finished to get them to you.

How much do you retouch?

I always

• make sure that the colours and contrast are nice, that’s a very important part of the retouching process;

• smoothen skin a bit where needed;

• remove distractions that are not too complicated (lamps, bins, spots etc.);

• retouch whatever is not a permanent part of the person or is distractive (distractive scratches, bruises etc.)

• retouch distractive elements caused by the difference between the view of the camera and our perception - shadows that make us look less fresh or older, things that we don’t notice when we see each other face to face, but photos sometimes highlight them unpleasantly.

Sometimes, I need to compose two or more photos together to get a great result.

When do we meet?

To get the beautiful golden light that makes you look so great we organise the photo shoots in the evening, just before sunset. That can be quite late for our dear small children, therefore please try to make them nap through the day and make sure that they are not hungry so that they are fresh and happy for the photoshoot.

For the same reason, don’t come late! The sun gives us beautiful light for about an hour - if we miss it, we can’t do anything about it.

Usually, we start a photo shoot about 45-75 minutes before sunset.

What about clothes?

Colours

The best is usually to start with colours. Coordinate colours for the whole family. It doesn’t mean to match the outfits, but make sure that the colour palette of the entire family works together. This ideally means keeping the number of colours low: 2-4. Solid muted colours are usually best (earthy tones, muted gem tones, monochrome, beige, taupe, blue tones, neutrals, pastels, etc).

Keep the overall contrast low: No black and white. If you have white, don’t choose black for it. If you have black, don’t combine it with white… This is important.

Tips:

For a beach with orange sand (Falesia Beach for example), great colours would be:

• blues or azures (for a calm contrast)

• blues/azures and a bit of green (a bit more playful)

• orange, yellow, brown, and even some red (for a very harmonious picture with red adding more punch; not too much red)

• brownish and green (for an earthy look)

For a beach with a lighter colour of sand (Gale Beach for example), really great colours would be:

• if the tide is not too high (most of the time - check with me), there are magnificent rocks with velvety green seaweed on them - great for

  • brownish, yellowish tones (for a calmer look)

  • purple, red, red and hot pink/purple combination (for a pop look)

  • or simply green (for a very harmonic look)

• blues or azures (for a calm contrast)

• sandy colour with a mint and purple combination (a bit more playful)

• azure/mint and purple combination (for a nice pop)

• orange, yellow, and brown (for a very harmonious picture)

• brownish and green (for an earthy look)

Be careful with large areas of pure white. It may look “flat” in photos and so bright that it steels the attention that should be on you! Smaller areas of white are fine.

Wear colours that don’t attract too much attention to it so that you are the main hero of the photo. That’s why darker or less saturated colours are usually ideal.

Often, the best approach is to start by choosing the colours and then find the right clothes for each family member. If you’re lost, you can never go wrong with a combination of cream, grey, and tan. Or use a professional stylist to help.

Style

Wear clothes that are your style and flatter your body - you must feel good in them. Dress for the occasion - a romantic walk (most of the time).

Remember to match the style for the whole family. If one person wears very formal clothes and someone else very relaxed clothes, it will probably look odd even if the colours go well together.

You can take accessories to give the outfit extra “oomph” - jewellery, sunglasses, hats, handbags… just not much more than is usual for you. Keep it simple.

Make sure that the clothing for children is the right size.

Shoes

Feel free to come barefoot or bring shoes you like that work well with the outfit (barefoot is almost always better than dirty old shoes falling apart).

What to avoid

No logos! No wild high-contrast patterns! No baseball caps, no hoods. No Disney characters. No small stripes. No high contrast colours (safety jacket style). They are all very distracting in photos.

It’s not easy to do all of this if you’re travelling. Don’t worry if you can’t. If you’re unsure, you can send me photos of the clothes you’re considering and I’ll tell you my opinion on what to choose (which you may or may not follow 😉).

You can wear clothes that:

• you can modify (add or remove a sweater, scarf, jacket etc.);

• can move in the wind;

• you can zip, unzip or wrap.

Should I use extra makeup?

Wear what you usually wear, what is your style. If you use stronger makeup than usual, you won’t look like you. Too strong makeup may look artificial and flat in the photos. Keep it rather down than up, especially eye makeup.

What else to get ready?

Sort out your manicure (broken nails or nail polish falling off don’t look great if we do close-ups, for a full body family shots it’s not so crucial).

Hair: Keep it simple, shave, brush, colour - whatever to make yourself look as you feel beautiful. Ponytails are usually not the best choice, something looser looks better in photos. Take a hairbrush with you to the photo shoot - wind can make our hair look messy very fast.

For a beach, take a towel, spare clothes for the children and some warm clothes for everyone. It’s often windy and when the sun gets down, it can start feeling very cold very soon - especially if you’re wet (and you and your children probably will be).

Get mentally ready for some hard work. Posing is not as easy as it may look like. Especially with group shots, it’s often needed to repeat the pose several times until there are a couple of photos where everyone has eyes open, no hair face, doesn’t stick their tongue out (kids :) ) and so on. Even with individual portraits, we may need to try different places, angles and pose variations.

Can we bring any props?

Yes, yes, yes! Bring toys, balls, sand buckets, bubble maker, sea shells, sports equipment, musical instruments, wine, surfboards, books, balloons, flowers - whatever represents your family and your personalities (and fits the poses you’ve chosen). If you would like to get a certain prop, but you don’t have it, feel free to ask, I may be able to get it for the photo-shooting.

Why don’t you finish more photos?

I can do that!

Some photographers use strong automated edits that are fast and therefore they can finish more photos in a shorter time to provide more photos. The disadvantage is that many small details in the photos are lost. I manually edit detail after detail to keep the nice details in and only remove the ones that are distracting. Each extra photo is around one extra hour of work.

Let me know if you want me to edit any extra photos.

Where do you take the family beach portraits?

I know great local beaches that have the best light in the evenings combined with great local natural scenery.

Will you share the photos on your social media or web page?

Normally, yes. Showing my work is a necessity in my business. I share photos anonymously, not tagging anyone, and not using names or other personal details. If you, however, don’t want me to share your photos, I understand it. Let me know and I’ll keep the photos strictly private. Read more here, please.