Nassau, Bahamas

This is one of the set shots we've been asked to do, take a few photographs on a beach with the family.

Had to be lent a lens for this (I just don't have 300mm in my bag yet) so a friend very helpfully sent one for me to use. I have no idea why the autofocus wasn't working, but I managed to get the shots I needed. My set shot worked perfectly though, so very pleased with the results.

We didn't want these to be too formal either (although we did do some), we wanted to catch a family playing.

I am not confident taking photos of people either, so it was a bit of a new one for me to order people around in such a way. Simply pointing the camera at someone just doesn't cut it, you need them doing something that you can capture.

The fun thing was telling the couple to be affectionate with each other. If you are trying to capture a kiss, it's no good if it's a fleeting kiss as you need a bit of time to get the shot. And one shot doesn't get it, you need several goes. But the couple in question played along with it perfectly. By the time we finished they didn't need any further encouragement, they were giving each other porno kisses, which is just as bad as the fleeting peck on the cheek (remember, these are meant to be family photographs, can't have a photo of the parents wildly tonguing each other whilst their child plays innocently in front of them).

The day ended with a bit of reflection. I'm sitting on the back of the ship, docked in Nassau in the Bahamas, technically a professional photographer now; a long way from where I was 10 years ago, sitting in a drafty old office on an industrial estate in the UK.

A funny question we were asked all day "what do you think of our (Bahama) beaches??". It's not pompous to say, we live on the Gulf of Mexico, and our beaches are even better. We smiled and nodded.

What was very nice was to be in mid 80Fs in December. Rock on shorts and flip flops.