We are just going to continue with the beach theme blog posts and I am sharing my own family photos today!  It is no secret that we love the beach.  We would literally live there full time if that made sense for our family right now.  It may happen one day…I fully plan on that, however, we are loving our country life.  Until then, we get to vacation there often and it is such a blessing!

The beach is my absolute favorite place to take photos!  Nothing is better!  From a photographers perspective, it is amazing because it has a natural reflector – the sand!!  It helps so much with getting that light to bounce back up on faces and it doesn’t cast weird colors on to people.  Also, you don’t have to worry about what location you are going to shoot at because…it’s the beach!!  Everyone wants the beach in their photos!  Duh.  

From a mama perspective – my family loves having photos there because it captures who we are.  We get to be silly and fun in the pictures.  We get soaked, always, and it’s okay! During this particular session though, Hayley freaked out over a wave hitting her and getting her dress wet.  Good thing we brought two dresses for her down to the water with us so she immediately changed.  {Pro tip – if you are doing photos at the beach, have towels, back up outfits, baby powder to getting sand off hands & feet, and even some sand toys to play with while you & hubby get pictures of just the two of you! }

I have said this before and I will continue to say it – – my favorite pictures are the fun ones.  The laughing, playing, running, whatever it is.  I will usually choose a photo like that as the ones I print and hang on our wall or post online because they feel so much more natural to me.  I also love them because children look happier in them.  

Tell me that my kids are not the only ones who, the moment you tell them to smile at the camera, they just forget how to smile.  Their faces distort weirdly and they either look terrified or like they are away too overly excited.  There is no happy medium.  Unless you make them laugh, and then we can get great pictures!  I have come to accept it and know that they will make strange faces in photos and THAT IS OKAY!!!  That is what they are like right now and I will most definitely have those photos available for all to see when they are teenagers and grown adults.  No shame. 

So, enough rambling, here are some pictures of my family from the beach this summer.  My sweet sister-in-law took these for us right after I got to take her maternity photos.  My dress was already soaked from waves crashing on us but I was totally happy about it! 

We couldn’t look at each other for more than 2 seconds with out cracking up! I feel your pain, couples of mine!






Oh Hayley Rae, you are so beautiful! 


Then, we brought little Camryn in for some cousin pictures! 

Anthony snapped a few headshots for me and THIS one is ME!  Laughing. 

Thanks for stopping by!

XOXO

Caiti