Avoiding sunburn before your session in Florida.

The problem is not really the sun itself.

Sun exposure only becomes a photography problem because of what studio light does to it. Daylight is broad and forgiving, and a lot of ordinary color variation simply blends into the rest of a scene. Studio light is close, even and considerably more honest. It shows exactly what is on your skin that day, which means it does not add color, and it does not hide it either.

My studio is a private, air-conditioned room in Naples, so nothing about the light or the temperature in the room is working against you once you arrive. The only sun that affects your headshots is the sun that already touched your skin before you walked through the door, which is exactly why the week before matters so much more than the day itself.

Where a burn or a tan line actually shows.

A portrait puts a handful of places under more attention than they usually get, and sun damage tends to concentrate in exactly those places.

• Shoulders and collarbones, especially if a scoop neck or a sleeveless top is part of your plan.
• A pale stripe left by sunglasses, a watch band, a strap or a sandal line.
• The nose and the tops of the cheeks, where peeling skin catches light differently than the skin around it.
• The backs of your hands, which land in frame far more often than people expect.
• A visible part line on your scalp if you have spent time outside bare-headed.

None of these are dramatic on their own. Together, in a portrait meant to look calm and put together, they are the kind of small distraction that pulls attention away from your expression, which is the part that actually matters.

A stripe is a wardrobe problem, not an editing one.

Retouching by hand can quiet small, ordinary variation in tone, but it was never built to erase a strap-shaped line across your shoulders or a nose that has started to peel. That is a texture and color problem carried across a wide area, not a small blemish sitting in one spot, and no finishing pass makes a week of sun exposure look like it did not happen. The honest fix is not needing one at all.

If a stripe or a burn does turn up, wardrobe is usually a better tool than editing. Sleeves, a slightly higher neckline or a layer that sits over the affected area can carry the weight that retouching cannot, and that is worth a quick conversation with me before your session rather than a surprise afterward.

The full day outdoors to skip this week.

The week before your session is not the week for a long, unplanned stretch in direct sun, however tempting the invitation. A whole afternoon on open water or a day with no real shade is the fastest route to color and a stripe you did not choose on purpose, and it tends to happen the day someone forgets the schedule entirely.

It is worth saying plainly what the actual exposure looks like on the day itself: the drive to the studio and the short walk from your car. That is usually the whole of it. The risk genuinely lives earlier in your week, in the plans you already have, not in the appointment itself.

Sunscreen without the flashback.

Protecting your skin all week matters more than anything you could do the morning of, but the wrong sunscreen photographs its own way. A heavy mineral formula can leave a faint white or gray cast, especially once flash or strong studio light hits it. That is not a reason to skip sunscreen. It is a reason to test what you use before the week you actually need it to disappear.

A simple test worth running early

Wear your usual sunscreen on your face for a normal day, let it fully absorb, and look at yourself in ordinary daylight and again indoors under a bright light. If it sits invisibly both times, you have your answer for the week ahead. If you notice a cast, that is worth knowing now rather than the morning of your session.

The plan, not the panic.

Treat sun exposure the same way you would treat any other item on the whole countdown toward your session, the same one covered in how to prepare for a photoshoot: something to manage early, not something to think about the morning of. Keep sunscreen part of your normal week, lean toward looser necklines if you already know you caught some color, and tell me ahead of time if a line or a stripe is something we should simply plan a wardrobe around.

A few related decisions sit next to this one. If you were already planning a tan, camera or no camera, its timing is worked out in spray tan timing. Wardrobe that holds up when you are dressed for warm weather is its own subject, covered in what to wear for a summer photoshoot in Florida. Anything cosmetic that leaves skin unsettled for a few days, botox and fillers included, belongs on the calendar well before this week rather than inside it. And if shine rather than color is what worries you under the lights, prep for oily skin and shine picks it up from there.