04/07/2026
I’m a professional photographer and I didn’t take my nice camera with me on vacation. I used my iPhone the entire time, including for this little photo sesh on the beach. Here’s how I did it so you can, too:
Timing > 5pm. It was still VERY bright and another hour would’ve helped, both with reducing the busy-ness on the beach and with the lighting. But I made it work and the white sands of Siesta Key were a lovely natural reflector!
Lighting > I almost always put the sun behind my subject and/or to the side when capturing their face. Creative shots, you can take more liberty and use backlighting or direct sunlight on your subject.
Tripod > bring one. I totally forgot ours and I was so bummed. Thankfully, a sweet lady on the beach saw me struggling to see a shot up and prop the phone up on my stroller and offered to take a few. She did great and the only thing I needed to deal with was editing out people in the background, which is super easy now with Lightroom’s AI feature!
Mode > I used portrait mode for every single shot. My camera worked hard and in the hot FL sun it did start to overheat…I had to take a few quick breaks but overall it did great and portrait mode gives you that soft background and fine focus you want 👌🏻
Editing > I edited all of these on my phone using a custom preset in Lightroom.
Printing > I likely won’t go above an 8x10, but I probably could (I’ve gone up to 12x12 before with phone shots and they’ve printed great!) 4x6s and 5x7s will print beautifully!
I’m not saying, don’t ever take your nice camera along. But a strong case can certainly be made to use your device in hand to get the job done. No, the quality is not top tier excellent as a DSLR raw image might be, but do you really need that for a casual vacation beach sesh?
Enjoy the tips and save for later if you’ll use them! 📸
