Help with Beach Portraits

Purest Light Photography

I have been doing photography for a while now but I recently got a new Sony dSLR350x and I just started my own business doing Natural Light portraits but im having a few lighting problems. We live in Japan and the coast is right here and I want to do some portrait shoots at the beach. But whenever I take the shots the water and sky is bright but my subjects faces are dark. It doesnt matter how bright it is outside. I try to shoot my subjects when they are in the shade on a bright day and try to only use the direct light when the sun is setting. I don't use any special equipment and I only use the light of the sun. If anyone could help me out with any tips that would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much for your time!

pathfinder

The sky, or a sea reflecting sunlight, is much brighter than the backlit subjects on the beach. The typical way to solve this is to add fill flash.

If you desire to remain a purist, them you will need a reflector to add light to your subjects face to bring the light level on their face closer to that of the sky and the water.

The reflector can be white poster board, an Impact reflector, or a California Sunbounce. You just need some means to redirect some of the natural light to you subjects face.

If you subjects face is below the horizon, I suppose you could also try a graduated neutral density filter. Most folks use fill flash or a reflector in this situation.