Hurricane Season Family Portraits

Hurricane season in the Riviera Maya brings with it beautiful extremes of weather. Bright sunshine switches with dramatic clouds and short, intense bursts of rain. Sometimes we even have bright sun and rain at the same time!

Every year we have hurricane and tropical storm warnings. Though it sounds scary, here in the Mexican Caribbean it’s all just part of the day-to-day. We keep an eye on the weather and plan accordingly. The whole tourist industry in Mexico is prepared for hurricane season. They are experts in keeping all our visitors safe and comfortable! Most often the hurricanes are just big grey clouds by the time they reach Playa del Carmen and Cancun.

The “hurricane”, “holiday” and indeed “wedding” or “family portrait session” are not words that we would normally put together, actually they can go great!

Karla and her family had booked a family portrait session with us at the Fairmont Mayakoba on the first Wednesday of August. The same day that Hurricane Earl was forecast to touch land. We checked the weather and did our best to plan the day to make the most of the weather. It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly!

Polly and Erika arrived in beautiful sunshine for beach family portraits. Blue skies but VERY strong winds were waiting for us on the beach. All the clouds rolled in the sky turned purple and the ocean lit up bright turquoise blue. Karla did an amazing job of dressing her children in 3 different outfits in 40 minutes (no mean feat!) As luck would have it her last outfit choice was bright coral and red dresses for the girls, which looked amazing with the epic skies.

The dark skies bright ocean and the wind whipping through the girls hair gives amazing color, contrast and movement in the photos.

We received this awesome message from Karla when she saw her sneak peeks!

“The pictures are simply awesome!!! We are really impressed of such a good job with that weather!!!!! The air was just insane!!! You are really a great photographer! Besides of very kind and sweet!!!! We loved our session with you!!! Thank you for everything and we’ll be awaiting (very excited) to receive the complete session!! Besides the great experience of getting a family memory photo session, it was an awesome experience for us to watch how fast the sky and the weather changed so beautifully!!! We would not change anything of the session!!!” – Karla

Thanks to Karla and her family for trusting our vision and Gracias Madre Naturaleza and hurricane Earl for painting the skies!

Ready to embrace the beauty of whatever weather? See why rain on your wedding day is AWESOME!

For more information about the wonderful weather of the Mexican Caribbean check out our seasonal guide

Photographer: Polly
Hair and Make Up: Sara Tamargo