Engaged in Pensacola: Daniel and Tiffany
The cutest couple on the beach.
Good Lord, they are a cute couple. I used to work with Daniel when we were both fresh out of school and worked at a car dealership. After three years, it's amazing to see about how far we both have come. Daniel and Tiffany's relationship is absolutely amazing; they were so much fun to shoot.
Pensacola Beach Photo Walk - Fort Pickens Winter
Just a day on the beach with my wife and our friends.
Just a day on the beach with my wife and our friends.
Candid Kids Portraits - Pensacola Beach Photographer
Living as close as I do to Pensacola Beach, truthfully advertised as the World's Whitest Beach, most of my family photo sessions every summer come from vacationing families who want beach portraits while they're in town. This family won my heart because they asked for something different than the usual postcard photos in front of the Gulf of Mexico. They preferred candid, B&W shots of the kids just being themselves, and I am pleased with the results. There is a time and a place for traditional, posed family shots. You should get one or two of them. Too often though, parents become near-obsessed with making sure that the kids are smiling, sitting still and looking up for the entire session. While well intentioned, focusing too much on perfect smiles tends to wear kids out sooner than if you back off a little bit and give the child and the photographer a chance to establish some rapport. A good family photographer will be good with kids, and the results will be better smiles, real laughter and a very true and beautiful capture of your kids in the final photos.
Jimmy and Arien - Pensacola Beach Wedding Photography
Much of my work every year comes from vacationers and out of town families who visit the sugar-white sands of Pensacola Beach every year. Having grown up swimming and diving around Pensacola Beach, I don't usually think of my old stomping grounds as a destination for weddings, but it is. And a beautiful one.
Jimmy and Arien found this website and contacted me to cover their intimate family wedding at a vacation home on the beach. It was a great day, with a ceremony involving both Jimmy and Arien's respective children, with a beautiful sunset to cap of the day.
Pensacola Family Portraits - Steven Gray Photography
Pensacola Family Portraits
Beaches, matching white shirts and jeans, the fountain downtown...these are all trademarks of Pensacola family portraits. With our proximity to the beach and the ready availability of spectacular sunsets, families in this area tend to default to the beach without considering all the other options nearby. However, when I am consulted on a good location for family portraits, I try to steer clients away from the areas where everyone else goes. Part of this is my professional responsibility--to give people something different than the Joneses down the street--but part of it is also selfish on my part, because the last thing I want to do to is go back to the beach and take the same images as every other photographer in town.
This is especially true when fall rolls around. I love this time of year. With the changing colors on the ground and in the trees (even Florida's green landscape experiences a little bit of change) the sunsets are warmer and richer. The season almost removes the divide between landscapes and portraiture; outdoor scenes look amazing and people look amazing standing in them. My job becomes very easy.
When my dear friend Karena, with whom I have worked in India for several years, asked me to take portraits of her family. The crew included Karena, her husband John, their daughters Brittney and Jordan, and Britney's boyfriend Brandon and his little girl, Kendall. When the subject of location came up, I suggested that we skip the beach and honor the season and visit a location that looks great this time of year. I used to wander all over the area to find unique places for family portraits, landscapes and even music videos and short films, and I found a location north of town several years ago that swiftly became one of my favorites. It seemed like the perfect place to shoot family portraits in November.
And, you know what?
It was!
