Photos: Beach Icons
Sunsets, umbrellas, beach chairs, surfers, beach balls, woodies, starfish and waves are a few beach icons we recognize and relate to as part of our California beach experience.
Beach Icons offer not only a perfect accent to photo reportage but also may have some commercial value. How many times have you seen a brochure or promotional piece using a starfish in the sand to promote homes, health care or other products that have absolutely nothing to do with the beach icon? These symbols are pleasant to look at and are used to enhance gift cards, marketing materials and a variety of things.
Umbrellas are a prominent theme at California's sun-soaked beaches. They come in many colors but the rainbow design is fun to work with. In this photograph I waited till a surfer passed by to give the picture some life. I had to move around and position myself so that the Huntington Beach pier would also lend to the image, giving it depth and dimension.
Umbrella photography
Professional photographers are accustomed to using umbrellas to shade subjects or bounce their flash unit on the material, creating a diffused light that enhances faces in portraits or evenly lights products. It's a fun twist to turn the umbrella into the subject matter and photograph it.
Iconic Beach Girls Looking at Ocean
