Crystal Cove State Park is a popular location for professional photographers in Orange County to shoot weddings, engagement sessions and family sessions. This article provides practical information and tips to photographers and their clients when scheduling a photoshoot at Crystal Cove.
How to Get to Crystal Cove
A good portrait photographer pays attention to details. Clear directions to the session site is often a missed detail that derails some sessions (by causing clients arrive late and frustrated). To avoid this situation, a professional photographer should give clear information to his clients on how to arrive at the park. The following instructions should be sufficient:
The park is located on Pacific Coast High between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach. The address (for their mapping software) is:
Crystal Cove State Park
8471 North Coast Highway
Laguna Beach CA 92651
For those who use Latitude / Longitude, the coordinates are 33.5701 / -117.8756.
Provide this information to your clients early. They may wish to visit the site before the shoot to identify the locations that work best for them.
Parking At Crystal Cove for Photo Session
There is a small fee for parking at the park. Advise your clients of this fee. If you are photographing a large extended family and they car pool, they will be able to save money on both gas and the parking fee. Remind your clients of this fact before the shoot.
This fee is normally paid upon exiting the park. Therefore, if your clients leave the parking lot after the lot is closed they will normally not be required to pay the parking fee.
Use the Shuttle Service for the Photo Session
There is some distance from the parking lot down to the beach. During regular operating hours, the park provides a shuttle service. This service is a great convenience when your session includes small children or aged grandparents.
Price of Photographing at the Park
Unlike many other beaches in Orange County, Crystal Cove requires the payment of a fee for a photographer to shoot in the park. A photographer should advise his clients of this fee long before the shoot so the client can make an educated decision as to whether it is worth paying the fee (the fee is around $ 60 for a individual family session) to shoot in this beautiful location or if They would like to shoot at one of the many others beaches that does not require a fee.
Crystal Cove Family Photography Friendly Factors
Crystal Cove has several attributes which makes it an ideal location for family photography.
As noted above, there is a shuttle services. This service is a great convenience to those families who have small children or aged grandparents who may find hiking down to a beach to be somewhat challenging.
Additionally, the park is large and provides a wide variety of backgrounds. Many family sessions include extended families. Thus, these sessions may include up to 30 or 40 people between the ages of 1 and 100. With the wide variety of backgrounds, a photographer can use to better match personality, age and size of group.
Examples of Terrific Crystal Cove Photography Locations
-Between the parking structure and the beach is a narrow path with green over brush and a variety of vegetation. While Crystal Cove is primarily a beach, this section of the park provides a wooded feel to the photo shoot
-At the entrance of the beach there are a couple of wooden barns that have been painted red and blue. These provide a rustic country backdrop for those desiring a more Midwestern look rather than a Southern California beach look.
-Directly before entering the beach, there is a quaint restaurant with picnic table on one side. This is a favorite spot for engaged couples to get some shots sharing milkshakes with a single straw.
-The beaches include sandy and rocky beaches. Not only does this provide great fun for and variety for small children who may want to seek out seashell or other sea animals it allows for great flexibility in posing.
-Many locations include ocean backdrops or cliff backdrops or a combination of cliff and ocean backdrops.
Conclusion
Crystal Cove is a unique and popular location for the photographing of families, engagements, and even weddings. Photographers in Newport Coast, Corona Del Mar, and Newport Beach should offer this state funded park to the list of locations they use to photograph families, couples and even pet photography.
Cove-State-Park-Photography-Tips&id=4920538″>Source by Vanessa Honda