5 ways to make it look like you’re on a private beach when you’re not

Do you ever look at beach pictures and think that you could never take images like that because your only option for beach photography is the public beach?

Well, that’s completely untrue, because I do it all the time!

With a few simple tips you’ll learn to shoot on a beach like no one else is there.

1. Zoom in

This is probably the easiest and most obvious tip, so let’s get it out of the way first. Check out the number of people on this beach. No way right? Well…you just have to zoom in.

I knew there wasn’t going to be any long shore images here, so I just went to the least crowded part of the water and got a few shots of my daughter.

If I zoom out a bit, you see the very crowded beach, but since I’ve moved so far away from the crowd it’s not horribly distracting.

2. Get to the beach early or stay late

The least crowded time of the beach is going to be between 8am-10am or around sunset, 7pm-9pm. We definitely make it a point to visit the beach during these hours.

I usually can find a less crowded spot on the beach and get some good images. Here, I was able to crop the people right out of the image. This was taken on a public beach right near the pier.

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3. Wait it out

I really wanted to take some pictures under the pier, but so did everyone else. At times it was so crowded I knew it wasn’t even worth it.

I was keeping an eye on it and noticed at one point the space was open. I called my daughter over and told her we needed to be quick. We still had to wait for a few people to walk by, but eventually we had a clearing and left only a few people to remove from the final image.

4. Take a walk

Take a walk on the beach and look for a spot where no one is around. This area was near the parking lot of the public beach and not really a desirable place to set up your umbrella for the day. However, it’s a great spot for some beach shots.

5. Remove people using Photoshop

This is probably the most time consuming but the most rewarding. This is my big secret in getting that look of the private beach. I’m going to include several final images with the pull back and then include an editing video to show you how I do it.

With a combination of these tips you can get the private beach look. I hope this will help you gain the confidence to pull out that camera out even if you have some unwanted people in the frame.