Los Angeles Venice Beach Sunset Photoshoot Fall 2024
On the last weekend of November, I went to Venice Beach to do some sunset beach photography before the winter with my friend, Alyx. We got incredibly fortunate with seeing some beautiful clouds appear as the sun set over the ocean. In the past few months, the Pacific Palisades beach coast has either been overcast or just clear.
The beach was overall pretty quiet with only a few people walking by, but it made for an incredibly peaceful and relaxing evening. Although you won’t be able to see it in this gallery of photos, we also got to see some dolphins swimming in the ocean.
All travel photos in this collection were taken with the Sony a7R III with both the Sigma 35mm and 85mm f/1.4 DG DN ART prime lenses. The photos were edited in Adobe Lightroom Classic.
CAMERA SETTINGS FOR BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY
For the two days at Venice Beach, I didn’t change the camera settings much. I kept a low ISO, changed my aperture between f/4 to f/6 and experimented with a few different shutter speeds.
I didn’t bring a tripod and didn’t think to do any long exposure shots of the beach. It was also incredibly bright during the sunset that I probably would have had to use an ND filter.
During blue hour on Sunday, I opened the aperture much wider and mainly stayed on the 35mm lens.
GOLDEN HOUR PHOTOGRAPHY IN VENICE BEACH
This photo session during the weekend is a perfect reminder why it’s important to go out and shoot, regardless of whether or not you think the weather might be in your favor. When I first arrived at the beach, the weather was pretty misty and foggy. The clouds were parting a bit, but as time passed, we got to see some of the blue sky before golden hour hit.
As the sun started to set over the ocean, there was the perfect amount of clouds covering the sky but not getting in the way of the sun. On Saturday, Alyx and I didn’t move much from our original position because the sun was starting to set fast, and we wanted to make sure we were able to capture as many images with this light as possible.
BEACH PHOTOGRAPHY COMPOSITIONS FOR TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHERS
The compositions featured in these beach travel photos are pretty simple. I simply wanted to capture the sunset straight ahead and get a few images of the Venice Beach pier, as well.
There were times when people would walk into frame. Whenever I saw someone walking by, I would adjust my settings to make sure that they would appear as a silhouette in the photo - this is a trick that I constantly do for street photography at night when a subject walks past a storefront.
While I stayed in a similar position on Saturday, I moved a bit around the beach on Sunday to take photos of the Venice Beach Pier and to capture the reflection of the clouds from the sky on the sand. The sunset wasn’t as strong as it was on Saturday, but I stayed much longer to photograph blue hour.
MOODY BLUE HOUR PHOTOGRAPHY
On Sunday, the clouds seemed a lot more dramatic after the sun had set so I would continue to explore the beach until there was little light left. The dark clouds in the sky created a moodier atmosphere to the beach photos than yesterday’s sunset.
Final Notes
As a travel photographer, I’m always excited to visit new locations that I have never photographed before. But I still get a lot of enjoyment from traveling to locations that I have photographed often and taking travel photos in amazing outdoor natural light.
