Beach portraits

Hi everyone,

I quite often shoot portraits at the beach and while I TRY to always shoot late afternoon, sometimes the reflections are still too bright & blow out parts of the background & worse still some people want morning shots.
Would a graduated neutral density filter or CP help or will that effect the shutter speed too much (given that children are usually involved).
I find that I am spending more time than I want to in CS2!

Thanks,

Suze

Any examples? Fill flash can usually help aid in softening the harsh shadows.

Sure, here's one (I hope)that I would have liked to have brought the sky down. It was overcast but still very reflective.

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I also use fill flash most of the time.
This was a misty day- I find most people are after the blue sky/ water background but a lot of the time the beach isn't anything like that!

I would dial the exposure down a stop or so and then use fill flash. The background will be darker and no harsh shadows on your subject. Here's an example...not meant to be anything serious, just playing around while the wife and I were at the beach.

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Definitely much better exposure... does the sea mist make a big difference when exposing?

That I don't know....with the picture I posted as an example I do think I should have dialed my flash down just a bit more. I think that if you meter off of the sky/background then dial it down a stop that it should turn out ok...I'm far from an expert on this, flash is a relatively new thing for me.