It's still a blast to photograph couples at the beach. I like to head out about an hour before sunset to capture that late afternoon light usually shooting well after the sun goes down.

One of the challenges to photographing at the beach is blowing sand, and very moist air. I find it useful to keep the lens cap or lens pouch on just until I'm ready to shoot. This means composing "Over" the lens and when the cover comes off it's pretty quick to make the final adjustments.

Another hurdle to get over is the lack of communication. If you are shooting with a long lens as I do, (Nikon 200mm f2) you are a fair distance away from your couple. With waves crashing and the wind blowing, it's difficult to give direction to the subject.

If you have the luxury of someone coming along, (in this case I had the young man's mother) position them half way between the subject and you, to relay position changes and posing. There still is a lot of trotting through the sand back and forth between the subject and the camera but having the third person helps a lot.

Congratulations to Laura and Cody on their engagement.