"Beach photography and portraits on location"

Opposite is a photograph I took a few months back at worms head in the Gower. A stunning beach with the backdrop of the famous worms head. We often use this location for beach portraits, especially for clients who live local and know the area. We also use Caswell bay, Langland bay and mumbles lighthouse for the same reason. Having your family photographed at your favourite location such as these not only looks cool but also creates a postcard like scene that looks great when framed or made into a large canvas print.

While photography in a studio is great for clear, bold and linear photography, what you gain with a white background, lights and soft boxes is often a loss of a sense of time and place that you can achieve with famous landmarks in the background of a photo.

Kapow currently have several favourite places that we like to take families too for portraiture. Having done this time and again we believe we know where and how to achieve some dramatic photography with you and your family. We use these same locations for pre wedding shoots also. Especially for weddings that have the venues close by such as the Oxwich bay hotel and Langland Golf Club.

We believe that planning and preperation in photography is just as important as camera skills. The more you think about photography the better your pictures will turn out. Patience is also key when working with children. I tend to observe the subject a lot whenever I am looking through the lens. In the photo opposite I was ready for the split second Angharrad looked back at the camera. Previously she was just walking away from me and there was no photo opportunity there. I was unable to tell her to make that particular pose like I would with a wedding couple for example. Children will not follow instructions like adults do so its important then that you just have to observe for a while in order to get the photograph that you want.

For this shot my camera had a shutter speed of 80, but I had also taken it up to 320 as the kids were jumping and running around and I wanted to catch a sharp image in the camera. The weather was a factor also on the particular day, one minute there was bright sunshine, the next it was grey and there was rain so my shutter speed / iso and aperture changed accordingly with the weather and also that of the childrens actions. My nikon SB600 speed light also played apart that day; I tend to experiment with the flash when shooting near rocks and water and have got some excellent results by diffusing and bouncing the light off surfaces such as black rock faces and behind the subject.

For me though the best part of a portrait shoot is capturing the look in the eyes. I try to get children to look directly into the lens. This gives a vacant ghost like effect in a photo that they are looking right through you and that they are in deep thought about something very important like the picture above portrays. When in all pobability she was probably thinking about nothing at all! They say the camera never lies, but that's purely down to the viewers nterpriation of whats actually happening not as to whether the camera is in fact lying!

Gower portraits