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Practice Photoshoot at Bathsheba- Barbados

Practice makes perfect and whilst out in Barbados I recently arranged a Practice Photoshoot at Bathsheba.  Bathsheba is on the east coast of Barbados and is a surfer’s paradise with massive breaking waves constantly pounding the coast.  As a result the air is misty with sea spray and high humidity.  A perfect place to practice as I hadn’t shot in these conditions before and as the backdrop is beautiful, I have no doubt that I will be asked by a client to photograph here in the future.  So I decided to set up a shoot to practice working in these conditions.

Before I go on, here is a brief slideshow (1.5 min) of the one hour practice photoshoot at Bathsheba.

Photographing weddings in the heat, humidity, wind and dust is considerably different to photographing a wedding on an English summer or winter’s day.  As I develop and gain experience in my Destination Wedding Photography, it is important that I practice and push myself.  This practice photoshoot at Bathsheba was all about experimentation and finding answers to questions such as:

How best do I photograph in the bright Caribbean sunlight? How do I keep sand and sea spray out of my equipment? How can I effectively use speed lights to enhance a shot in really bright sunlight? And how do I use the beach, rocks and environmental conditions to get the best from my photography?

Since being in Barbados I have organized two practice shoots.  The first of these shoots was at sunset on the calm beaches off the west coast. I had just a bit of sand to contend with and a beautiful, but rapid, sunset.  Nevertheless, it was still practice and I was particular pleased with the results.   To see more of this shoot take a look at my Barbados Beach wedding blog

The second, this practice photoshoot at Bathsheba, was going to be a whole lot more challenging.  For a start, we commenced at 9 o’clock  so the sun was already high, similar to where it would be for an afternoon wedding. The humidity on the east coast is much higher than on the west coast as there is much more sea spray due to the continual waves crashing ashore.  This meant that long distance shots were always taken through a light mist or fog and the lenses were constantly getting misted up with salt water spray.  The bright sunlight meant the camera LCD display was really difficult to read in any detail, so checking my images as we progressed was hard. A few of them turned out to be slightly out of focus or over exposed.  Nevertheless, as the shoot progressed I became better at reading and applying the correct camera settings and at positioning my model, Jennifer, in the right place.

Below is a selection of photographs from this practice photoshoot at Bathsheba.