Every year, I have the absolute privilege and pleasure of taking family photos at the beach for my dear friend and fellow photographer extraordinaire, Cynthia. Port Stanley is a meaningful spot for their family, and one of my favourite places to shoot—especially as the sun starts going down. These photos are from last year’s session, and I can’t wait to do it all again later this year!
I’m reminiscing about last year’s Port Stanley Beach Minis on this rainy Monday! Beach minis are perfect for capturing fun, playful, candid photos either as a family or a couple. There’s just something about the beach that invites you to splash in the waves, dig your toes in as you walk along the shoreline and cuddle up on washed up beach logs. This year’s beach minis will tentatively be held on June 12th, August 11th and September 11th. To get first dibs on booking, email sophie@rawfootagephotos.com, subject line “Advance Notice Minis”, to get on the advance notice email list! The booking email for the first round of beach minis in June goes out TONIGHT. Here are some favourites from last year!
I am so excited to share this beautiful sunset family session today. This shoot took place on a beautifully sunny, incredibly windy late Summer evening. There were actual wind warnings for the area, and the waves were unbelievably high. Nonetheless, after chatting about our options, we decided to go for it. And I am so glad we did. We mostly stayed away from the water’s edge to avoid the worst of the wind, and the beach was completely empty due to the weather conditions. The delicious golden hour light was to.die.for., and this gorgeous family put together the most beautiful outfits for their beach session. So many playful, snuggly candid moments. The whole shoot was a dream. Here are some favourites!
(P.S.: Johanna is a talented photographer herself - check her work out here!)
This was such a fun morning family session at Little Beach in Port Stanley. I don’t usually shoot at this beach because I tend to book evening sessions in Port Stanley, but Little Beach was perfect for that beautiful morning light. The beach tends to always bring out that candid playfulness I love to photograph, and this session was no exception. I hadn’t seen this sweet family since baby brother’s newborn lifestyle session, and it was so lovely to see them again. Here are some favourites from their fun beach session!
So many of my favourite things collided for this fun family beach session. An empty beach? At golden hour? With a friend and her gorgeous family? And so many fun, candid moments to document? YES PLEASE. Saleme is such a beautiful person inside and out. She has assisted me with weddings here and there and is an amazing photographer herself (her brand/product styling photography is perfection). I really loved photographer her family and am sharing some favourites on the blog today!
Booking opened up to my advance notice list for this year’s beach minis, which means it’s the perfect time to reminisce about last year! We had SO MUCH RAIN last year. I don’t think I’ve ever had to reschedule beach minis so many times. I studied the weather radar like a hawk and despite that, got caught in the rain multiple times. But despite all of the weather frustrations, these were some of my favourite beach sessions to date. Here are some highlights!
I wish you could have seen me putting this blog post together. First of all, it took a very long time. But most importantly, I smiled from ear to ear the entire time. So many beautiful families. So many favourites. So many. Some obvious ones that I previewed on social media and were stand-out favourites from the very beginning, and some that I had completely forgotten about, that for some reason didn’t really grab me during the editing process but made my heart sing during this yearly review.
As always, I feel the need to point out that my initial selection was so large it was ridiculous. In fact, one might argue that this selection is ridiculously lengthy. But I can only narrow them down so much, ya know? At the end of the day, whether a session appears in this compilation or not, I am so eternally grateful to each family that trusted me with capturing their memories - some for the first time in 2018, and some for the 8th time. It sounds so cliche, and we photographers like to throw around phrases like “I want to tell your story” and “capture your milestones” and “document your real life”… but it’s the truth. It’s why I do what I do.
Looking through all of these images made me so excited about the upcoming shooting season. For now though, I’m still reminiscing about the incredible year that was 2018. Here are some favourites!
This year's beach minis are about to start booking, and as always it's about this time that I love to reminisce about the previous year's sessions. I'm so excited to share last years beach minis on the blog this evening!
If you'd like to get on the advance notice list for the next round of minis (and all subsequent rounds), you can email me at sophie@rawfootagephotos.com, subject line "Advance Notice Minis".
I love this family. I say it every time I have the pleasure of photographing them, and every time I blog their sessions. They've been with me since my very early days as a photographer and lucky me, they keep coming back! This session is from 2016 - not my most recent session with them (I have a lot of blogging to do) - but one of the most memorable. We headed to the beach in Port Stanley on a chilly Fall day for something different. They played, laughed and snuggled, and I just tried to keep up - documenting all of those candid moments that I love so much. Here are some favourites from this playful lifestyle beach shoot.
I had a blast photographing this beautiful family a couple of Summers ago (Yes, I'm behind on my blogging... but I'm getting there!). It was a quiet day on the beach and we had so much fun playing and going between sweet snuggles and complete silliness. They even managed to coordinate an outfit change halfway through, which is amazing to me as someone who can barely manage to get my own crew organized with one set of outfits for family photos! So glad to finally be sharing my favourites from this session. P.S.: If you've ever wondered what the difference is between a full family session and a mini, this is it. We had so much time - time for outfit changes, time to be silly and playful, time to try different parts of the location, time to get lots of different combos and candids. Minis are wonderful, but if you're looking to really capture your family's spirit, have time to relax in front of the camera and just capture your interactions organically without feeling rushed and have waaayyyyyyy more than 10 photos to show for it, consider a full shoot for your next family photos! :)
