By now, you’ve seen lots of making-of images from our photo trip to the coast from all angles. Now it’s time for the ‘real’ results.

For this picture, I just pressed the button. It was Tom who set up the shot. He placed Annelien in some nice backlight and put a reflector to camera right to bounce back some light onto the model.

Lien, a friend of Pieter, had no posing experience but wanted to try i. The harsh sunlight at noon is not woman’s best friend. So we searched from some open shade and found it behind a metal shed. By placing Lien so there was just some light striking the top of her head from behind the shed, we got a pretty hair light. The indirect light throws soft light on her face.

Shooting on the beach has gives you the advantage of having light reflected from the sand. This soft light from below fills in the shadows nicely.

The sun was still high and strong when I took Fauve to the waterline. I didn’t want to loose the detail in the sky, so I had to shoot at iso50, 1/250 en f/13 for a slightly underexposed background. Because the sun is behind Fauve, she was rendered to a dark (albeit nice) silhouet. Ake was kind enough to get in the water with us and hold a Sunbounce Mini Micro reflector (I’ll write more about it soon) with a flash attached to it (camera left). With the flash at full power we were able to balance the light on Fauve with the ambient light.

Time to take it a step further/deeper. I wanted to include a crashing wave from just above the water. My camera’s can take a bump and a drop of water but salt water doesn’t mix well with complicated electronic devices. So I was on my knees in the water, looking through the viewfinder. Ake yelled ‘wave!’ everytime I was about to be hit with a splash North Sea so I could make a quick click and immediately raise my camera in the air to prevent it from catching a big wave.

A pair of soaking wet trousers and a couple of pictures later, we got back into shallower water to get some wider shots.

Ake and I switched hats: she got behind the camera while I was promoted to be a ’sunbouncer’. After Ake took her pics in the dunes, I saw this images I wanted to make. Ake is just out of the frame to camera left bouncing some light into the shadow side of our model.

When the sun set, Tom and Pieter took the models to the water again. I went with them as a spectator but was able to grab this quick shot of Annelien with the lensbaby.

One could be under the impression that we are all sweet photo-friends but don’t be mistaken. When someone had to walk all the way back to the surf club because he forgot to put an empty CF-card in his pocket, I just stole his model without any remorse.

I just love those muted pastel colors at sunset.

In case you can’t get enough of this, check out the full Flickr set with results and making-of photo’s.