Nantucket Family Session at The Wauwinet | Photography by Kristen Swain

This Nantucket summer family session is one of my favorite examples of how being flexible with the timing of your session based on weather conditions can really pay off.  Leading up to this family’s session, it had been stormy on the island, and we’d been keeping a very close eye on the weather in case we needed to move our meeting time.  It was raining the night before the scheduled session, but I also noticed in the forecast that fog was expected for the next morning (we were supposed to meet that evening).  I emailed the family to mention that shooting in the fog could make for really gorgeous photos.  To me, a foggy background is so pretty, and also a classic representation of Nantucket.  

The next morning I heard from mom Janet, who was excited about the potential for foggy photos too, but they had an early morning commitment they had to attend first.  We decided to schedule our shoot for 10am, which was the earliest they were able to make it to our meeting spot after their previously-scheduled morning activities.  We were all hoping the fog might linger for us, but it burned off shortly before we started to shoot.  While we didn’t end up with fog, the storm clouds were still passing through and did stick around for a while, creating super nice lighting conditions and softening the sun’s rays enough to allow us to shoot in the open without it being overwhelmingly bright.  These conditions also helped the blues and greens at our location (the grounds and beach at The Wauwinet) pop beautifully that morning. 

I almost always recommend aiming for sunrise or sunset for your photos, because if we end up with a sunny day with no clouds, that’s when we’ll have the softest, glowiest, most flattering, light for your portraits.  But there are also plenty of weather scenarios that will allow us to shoot at different times of day with beautiful results.  I always check in with my clients as we approach your session date and the weather picture becomes more certain, and will let you know if I think a different time would be better for your photos.  I usually build in plenty of wiggle room in my schedule, which makes it pretty easy for me to shift your session time if conditions warrant.  I highly recommend, when preparing for your session, to try to keep your schedule open too, so you can adjust with me — like this family did — based on what Mother Nature serves up for us.

Nantucket Family Session at The Wauwinet | Photography by Kristen Swain

Nantucket Family Session at The Wauwinet | Photography by Kristen Swain