Family and Maternity Photos at the Beach

Rockingham Beach Family and Maternity Photos

Bek and Russell came to us to arrange family and maternity photos at the beach in Rockingham, which happens to be a favourite spot they regularly visit. We’ve been fortunate enough to journey with them and their family and have actually documented all three of their pregnancies. With each subsequent session the focus has understandably moved from the pregnancy and maternity shoot to being more of a family celebration and a time of togetherness. So for this most recent shoot, we only spent a very short time documenting the pregnancy and far more time on the family as a whole.

We were so blessed to have an unseasonal warm autumn day, which made spending a couple of hours at the beach oh so enjoyable. Russell and Bek’s daughters, Emery and Ava, were so excited to be at the beach and couldn’t wait to hit the water…despite mum’s plans to keep them dry for at least a little while. Before too long we were all in the refreshing water to varying degrees. Yes even I got in the water for some of the shooting.

Over the years Russell and Bek have gradually developed a small collection of tattoos which have great significance to them, some of which you’ll see in the images below. Of arguably the greatest importance is a tattoo Bek has on the inside of her left wrist. It features the word “Cherished” in a beautiful flowing font which is underscored with a number of sets of dates that have very special meaning to their family.

Thank you so much for allowing us to take another set of photos of your gorgeous family, and we wish you all the best with the upcoming addition to your family.

For Photographers

We tried to arrange this session to fit with the golden hour(s) preceding sunset, but found that the sun was still very harsh at the start of the shoot. This makes the light less ideal for portraits, but gives you heaps of light to get great shutter speeds for capturing active children at play. Most of the images in this post were shot with natural light only, with the exception on the set with Bek in the long purple dress, which incidentally was a stunning choice by Bek and suited her beautifully while showing of that great pregnant figure. This series was lit with a Canon 580 EXII Speedlight firing into a Paul C Buff Soft Silver reflective umbrella on a (voice activated) light-stand. Given the strength of the sun, we had the flash set to half-power which allowed us to stop the ambient down a bit, while still using the sun as a strong rim light. We’re looking to add some portable strobes to our arsenal to allow us to overpower the sun in similar situations and really drop the ambient light levels for more dramatic effect, but in this case we just needed enough power to ‘match’ the afternoon sun. No gels were used on the flash and it still provided a good colour match to the sun rim light. Perhaps this was because it was cross-lighting Bek and acting as somewhat of a reflector at the same time… As usual, the camera was a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, and all shots were taken with either the 35L or 70-200L lenses.

Event: Family Photos | Location: Rockingham Beach Foreshore | Photography: Deprimo Photography