Santa Monica Beach Lifestyle Portrait Photography | Summer 2024
The beach is an amazing and common location for portrait and lifestyle photoshoots in Los Angeles. I have gone to Santa Monica plenty of times to capture lifestyle photos of actors and models.
During this photoshoot, I worked with actress and model Jenna Zhu for another lifestyle sunset photoshoot on the beach. I did a similar photoshoot with Jenna during our first photoshoot back in 2023, but this time, I wanted to capture photos using props and products to add a bit more versatility to the images rather than just a standard portrait photography.
In this blog post, I’ll be sharing my favorite selection of photos and the process to produce this photoshoot. All photos were taken on the Sony a7R III and shot with the Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART. These photos were edited in Adobe Lightroom.
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/800 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/500 sec. | f/3.2 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/640 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/640 sec. | f/4.5 | ISO 100
Planning the Photoshoot
As I mentioned, I wanted to feature a variety of products and accessories for this beach photoshoot (sunglasses, tote bag, glass fragrance bottle, water bottle, etc.) Looking back, I learned a valuable lesson of not trying to get a bunch of different product shots in a short amount of time.
While I am happy with how some of the images turned out, I think the photos would have turned out even better if I focused on less products and more on the quality of each photo. Given the fact that we had only about 2 hours for the photoshoot, I would have stuck to 2 or 3 products at a time.
I chose a less-crowded part of the beach where we would have more opportunities to explore the area without distractions.
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/6.3 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/400 sec. | f/7.1 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/800 sec. | f/2.5 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/800 sec. | f/2.5 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/1000 sec. | f/2.8 | ISO 100
CHOOSING THE SIGMA 85MM LENS
I stuck with the Sigma 85mm lens for pretty much the entire shoot because of the amazing compression and lack of distortion in the photos. While I did include some full body shots, many of the photos I took ended up being closer from the waste-up. If I had used another lens like my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG DN Art lens, then the distortion would have looked a bit more obvious.
The Sigma prime lens has an aperture that can go as wide as f/1.4. While I usually don’t need to adjust the aperture to be that wide, the option to do so is important (especially during blue hour when I have less light to work with but still want to keep my shutter speed fairly high).
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/1000 sec. | f/2.5 | ISO 100
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/320 sec. | f/1.4 | ISO 400
Sony A7R III | Sigma 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART | 1/250 sec. | f/1.6 | ISO 320
