I had 18 clients for this session in Gulf Shores, Alabama. These women were having a weekend retreat for their individual makeup businesses. They wanted headshots, lifestyle shots, and then beach portraits. With 18 individuals, I had to make very efficient use of their time. For the headshots, I decided to use a white/black background using natural light from the balcony. I wanted to mimic the look from a makeup mirror and using natural light allowed me to take several shots at once which gave me more options to give each person.

They rented a huge beach on Gulf Shores West Beach and this gave us some great options. Keeping with maximizing the use of time, we picked a spot in the house that had good lighting and each person had a minute or so for their portrait. This may not seem like a long time but all these ladies let their personalties shine. By staying in one area of the house I didn’t have to change my camera setting too much which allowed for a quick pace.

We had a very bright afternoon with no clouds in the sky. When it’s bright like that people tend to squint and that makes for unflattering portraits. So, I setup an impromptu portrait session on the balcony where we could beach portraits without being on the beach. After we finished the balcony portraits we finished with beach portraits against the beautiful January sunset.