If I had to choose an empty beach or a crowded beach for a family photo session,
OF COURSE I'd choose the empty beach, but crowds don't scare me.
They just require a little extra care, thought, and planning.

Here are four tips for what to do when you want to take pictures on a crowded beach,
but you don't want a thousand people in the background:

1) Choose a mid-range lens instead of a long zoom!
Normally, I LOVE LOVE LOVE my 70-200 lens for beach sessions, but for crowded days,
it's not a great lens to use. With that 70-200 lens, you have to back up from your subject quite a bit.
On a crowded beach, you'll end up with people walking between you and your subject.
For this session, I chose my 24-70 lens so I wouldn't have to be as far away from the people.

2) Choose a location that's uncomfortable for beach-goers.
This may take some walking and exploring, but it's worth it.
This photo shoot had 13 people, so all 14 of us walked for quite a while to get to a spot
that was more rocky and not as "easy going" for beach bummin' folks.
I told the group that we'd need to walk & that it would be worth it,
and they all agreed (they were scared of the crowds, but they trusted me).

You can see the type of location we chose here:

That image leads me into tip #3:
3) There aren't as many people in the SKY!
Everyone at the beach is on the sand or in the water (usually!).
Choose shooting angles where you shoot the water and a lot of sky,
like in that image of the dad with his baby boy up there.
If you find a rocky spot, it's pretty likely that there won't be many people
swimming in the water behind your subjects, too!
In that image, there are probably at least 20 people in the background,
but they're WAYYYYY far away, so you can't even tell.

Last tip:
4) Remember that closeups are great, too!
For quite a few shots, I got up close and created some nice closeups for this family:

I still left the beach & water in a lot of them, like this next one,
so you can see the beautiful beach, but it's not a big huge scenic shot:

So, you have my permission to be a little bummed when you show up to a crowded beach,
but don't be scared any more!!

~Carey

If you're a professional photographer or an enthusiastic camera owner,
you need a great way to show off your images online!

I started working with Zenfolio earlier this year, and it is an AMAZING system!
First of all, those tech-brainiacs up in San Jose are GENIOUS,
and they actually LISTEN to what photographers want!

Second, the galleries & the layout of the Zenfolio system is CRAZY AWESOME.
And, it's so easily customized that you can make it suit your own style with a few clicks.

THIRD, you get prints from the radest print lab on URF -- MPIX!

Compared to other online gallery systems, I think Zenfolio is the beezneez,
and it's only $100 a year, BUT NOT THIS WEEKEND!!!

THIS WEEKEND ONLY, through MIDNIGHT on Labor Day,
you can get a membership for an entire year of Zenfolio for only $60!!!

So, as you celebrate this Labor Day weekend,
decide to save yourself some hard Labor, and SIGN UP FOR ZENFOLIO.

This is a price I've never ever seen before, and I'm SO STOKED that the guys at Zenfolio
are letting me offer this to you!!

Use the code barefoot-60 to get your $100 membership for $60!

Start creating your galleries, and you'll be blown away by how easy it is!

Drag & drop your images that you want in a gallery, and click a button... SIMPLE!

Then you've got a gallery that ROCKS and makes your images look as amazing as they are!

That code is barefoot-60

It's valid on NEW MEMBERSHIPS only, and it expires at Midnight on LABOR DAY.

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone!

~Carey

To say goodbye to summer, this family came down to their San Diego beach condo
for one last summer adventure.

We met in La Jolla for to create great family portraits.

There was bird chasing, wave jumping, and lots of running:

Now they're back to school, but they'll have some great photos to hang on their walls,
and I have a feeling their family Christmas card will include some warm sunny memories included!

~Carey

OK, this is pretty cool.

The lastest "MPIX ROCKS" ad has hit newsstands!

First, it was THE Photoshop DUDE himself, Scott Kelby.

This blog post is going up about 20min after I planned, because I just spent that much time
reading all about his awesome BLACKHAWK shoot -- VERY COOL, Scott!!

After Scott'sMpix ad came my buddy JP!

DAGNABIT! You guys are too good!
I just delayed this post (and my Rubios lunch!) by another 20 minutes watching JPs videos!
LOVE the engagement video, JP!

Scott & JP's ads finished their runs, so it was time for a GIRL to come in and show the boys how it's done, right!?

Where else would my Mpix ROCKS ad be but THE BEACH!!??

To create this photo for the ad, I called on my buddy, ZAK& his family.

We met on Coronado, and I brought along my Alien Bees lights, power pack, and wireless trigger.
We set up one light with a big softbox on it and set it off to the side a bit.

I used Zak as the test model to get the light setting just right.
Normally when I use my lights, I go for an over-dramatic effect,
but for this, I wanted it to look more natural, just to help me stand out because it was a cloudy morning.

Zak took the opportunity (soooo prize soooo prize) to ham it up a bit.

Seriously, though, he is a pretty cool dude... when he wants to be:

Once the lights were set up, Zak's family played in the background and I took some shots of them,
turning back to Zak for "the shot" for the ad.

The best moment of the morning was when Jack decided it was time to hug & cuddle:

After the hug break, we went back to work...

Here's one of the shots I got while I was shooting the cute family:

And here's the final result, on newsstands near you!

Here's my own version, though...

MPIX DOES ROCK, by the way!! Haven't experienced the awesomeness yourself? WHY NOT!?

GET to Mpix.com and see for yourself!

Summer vacation is officially over,
and it officially went by faster than any summer vacation in recorded history.

To give Mr. Summer one last kiss goodbye,
we invited some kids over to splash in our little backyard pool.
(not too many kids... "little" doesn't quite cover how tiny our little pool actually is!)

The kids don't seem to mind the miniscule pool proportions,
especially when it's over 100 degrees outside and the water is an awesome 78.

I did get them to hold still for a few seconds to grab some quick pictures.

How cute is this kid!? (I love those ears!)

Earlier that morning, I splurged on the $20 water polo set at Target.
It's the one Mat had been coveting all summer,
and darnTarget never put that blessed little red clearance sticker on it!! HOW DARE THEY!?!

Turns out, it's worth every full-price penny,
and the perfect size for our pool (known from now on as the Schumacher Water Polo Field).

Even though school has started, it's still pretty hot around here,
so I'm sure we'll have many more water polo matches!

Mat's the kind of kid who will organize a tournament with brackets, rankings, points, and trophies,
so we'll see if that happens!!

~Carey