Who doesn’t love light and airy beach photos?
This photo was taken last fall on an unusually warm Toronto day. It was late September and we had been wearing warm jackets and even hats during the evenings. For this session, we had prepared to bring coats, wear layers and scarves…but there was no need!
I find beach photos with a lot of sky very difficult to photograph. I love the light and airy look but if I set my camera to shoot a bright photo at the beach, the sky will inevitably be overexposed and will be a wash of white (which isn’t always a bad thing, it just depends what the intent is).
For this image, I didn’t mind a very pale sky, but SOME colour needed to be there. I didn’t want the sky to be completely white and blown out. My method was therefore to shoot the original image a bit darker (i.e. “underexpose”) so that I had room to lighten things up in my editing software.
You’ll see in the “after” image that I increased the exposure by quite a lot on most of the image, but only a little bit on the sky. To do this, I used the gradient filter in Lightroom as well as some masking in Photoshop. I like that the fall colours became more visible in the background, and how her dress looks white instead of the blue tone in the original. A few other edits I did were to de-puff the dress a bit as the wind was making it very billowy and we lost a bit of mom’s form/shape, and removing the extra people in the background.
Jessica Nip Photography specializes providing a full service experience that starts with booking your session through to the beautiful tangible heirloom products being displayed in your home. Her style of soft, natural and light-filled imagery can be seen in all her maternity, newborn, child and family portraits in Toronto, Canada. Her favourite images are highlighted on the blog, but if you’d like to see what a full gallery looks like, please send her a note and she’d be happy to show you!
To inquire about a session, please click here or email Jessica at info@jessicanip.com.
