Family at the beach

These are nice images that could've been enhanced through a bit of pre-planning and maybe a bit later in the day. Fill flash might have helped. If you're using LR3, Adobe has a terrific series of help videos on their site. Watch them, they give good info. You should keep trying to document your beautiful family. You'll appreciate it later in life. Been there, done that. suecassidy has some great points above. Keep shootin!

fab123 wrote in post #12224512
Sue, thank you very much for your input..... Were you able to distinguish the Huntington Beach pier in the background? (I noticed HB is listed on your profile)

Actually, I DID look to see which pier it was, saw what looks to be Ruby's at the end and thought it might be ours, but I didn't see the lifeguard tower, so wasn't sure. I guess the tower is further down. Don't you love Huntington Beach?

Fill flash would have helped, but thats obviously harder than just correct metering. Meter off the FACES and the rest should reasonably fall into place. I would think that there's enough bounced fill from the sand to help. I just don't think people know what looks good; first 3 responders with their "great!" "Nice pics... what setup did you use?" are case in point. Lessons in posing comes WAY after learning how to expose, compose and process. Just PLAY in lightroom and try to educate yourself on what looks good. Probably I don't. Its a personal, yet undoubtedly gestalt-driven, visual experience. You can read all the books you want but if don't know what doesn't look good, you'll just end up in the same place, but faster.