Most of my clients who book a beach family session are hoping for an evening with the gorgeous golden glow of a sunset. The beach at sunset is a beautiful location for family photos, but you don’t need to have the sun to have great photos. In fact, I much prefer having some clouds in the sky for a session than a clear sky and when there are dark cloudy evenings can add beautiful dimension and mood to your images.

There are a few things you need to do to prepare for a cloudy evening photo session.

Your Wardrobe Matters

Whenever clients book a session with me, I send a wardrobe guide with tips on how to dress. I also have a client closet with dresses available on loan for women and I can send over a complete and customized wardrobe board. I can be as hands on or hands off with the wardrobe planning process as you want. However, at a bare minimum, I do recommend that you follow the tips in the guide. The colors, styles and textures that I recommend are all selected with the locations in mind.

Cloudy evenings at the beach require color for visual interest. Colors like tan and white will blend with the sand too much and on cloudy days appear flat. When selecting your outfits for the session, you always want to keep in mind the possibility that it could be a cloudy day. For example, my recent client originally had a color palette that included white and off white. When she sent her outfit options, I recommended that she pull in some color and she did a last minute shift to a rich coral dress. It was the perfect choice to balance out her daughter and husband’s neutral tones.

Location Options

I have a handful of preferred beach locations. On cloudy evenings, I may switch to an alternate beach location for multiple reasons. If it is completely overcast, I prefer to shoot at a beach that is not flat and has some visual interest to break up the flat sky and sand. It is important to trust my judgement if I make this last minute location change based on the weather. Furthermore, some locations allow for slightly different start times, so weather will also impact that.

husband and wife seated on a jetty with dark cloudy blue skies behind them and dad is kissing mom on head while holding baby

Start Time

If it is cloudy, I will need to adjust your start time. In particular, if it will be fully cloudy and overcast day. This is because during golden hour we will lose light quickly at sunset, so I want to make sure we maximize our time together. Sometimes, I need to make this adjustment an hour or two before your session, so it is important to be flexible.

family holding baby girl with lace dress and big bow and jetty behind them with deep dark clouds in sky

Flexibility

Beach weather has its own pattern. It is often unpredictable at sunset, which is typically when thunderstorms and clouds roll in during the Summer. I monitor the weather the week before and all day on the day of your session. There are times that weather rolls in out of nowhere and it simply can’t be predicted. I don’t cancel or reschedule sessions until late afternoon on the day of the session and that is based on the weather forecast. There are also times that my clients and I decide to go for it despite the report and it ends up being a gorgeous evening and other times when it drizzles. 90% of the time it all works out, but mother nature can sometimes be finicky.

family embracing baby girl in lace romper and white bow and she is looking at camera smiling sunset blue and pink sky coral boho off the shoulder dress

Recent Cloudy Evening Family Session

This recent family beach session was such a pleasure to photograph. It took place on an evening when the weather initially called for thunderstorms, but then the radar and report showed clear skies for the rest of the day from noon on. On the way to the session, the weather took a turn and dark ominous clouds appeared. In fact, at one one point it was raining, but fortunately it stopped right when my clients arrived. We weren’t quite sure what would happen, but decided to go for it. The sky was an array of colors that evening. There were dark ominous clouds to the west and north, but the south and east showed blue skies. The sunset made a very brief appearance at the end. I absolutely love the moodiness of these images and my clients gorgeous dress. Here are a few of my favorites.