Carolyn J. Braden • 3 Minute Read
How to Take a Sand Heart Beach Picture
I have to give all the credit to my niece, Aubrey, for this cute sand heart beach photo tutorial. We always try to do a cute photo of us on the beach whenever she visits and when I asked her what we should try this time, she remembered seeing a heart beach picture on social media that she liked, so we set to work trying to recreate it. It took a bit of figuring out and testing different phones, but we eventually got it. Read on to learn how to take a sand heart beach picture.
My niece and I and our beach heart photo
We did the photos to celebrate her 16th birthday and my mom’s 70th birthday, but they are fun to do anytime you are going to the beach. Cute photos give you and your group a special way to remember your time together. They also make cute framed gifts or magnets for your fridge!
I got our group all Hello Weekend bags and cute heart heart shaped sunglasses sunglasses too (both inexpensive Temu finds), which looked great in photos too. See those photos and my cool tissue paper and gift bag hack by clicking here or watching my one minute tutorial below:
If you read to the bottom of this article, I included some of our other beach photo items like the travel tripod I use, our favorite beach couch that the wind blows up for you, and more. I also tell you why YOU MUST FILL IN THE HOLE WHEN YOU ARE DONE TAKING THE PHOTO.
One of my favorite quotes from The Mindy Project
My undergrad degree is in photography, so taking photos is something I love to do, especially with people I love like my best friends. Your best friend isn’t a person, it’s a tier and I like having really good best friends around me to do fun things like this with! This photo shoot turns out really good if you have a little patience and follow our directions.
Our beach heart group photo
Items you’ll need to make it easier:
Sand shovels (we love these heavy duty sand beach shovels from Amazon)
Smaller camera phone with a timer (we took ours with a smaller iphone as the iphone Pro Max was quite large)
Paper towels or something to lay your phone on to avoid it getting too sandy
Towels to kneel on (even my niece’s knees hurt due to the rough sand…we like traveling with lightweight Turkish towels because they don’t take up too much room and they dry fast)
Beach heart selfie by my niece
1—The first thing we did was start digging a hole with our beach shovels. Damp sand works best for this beachy sand heart photo.
2—We dug down about 2 feet. You do have to watch how far you dig down because you may hit water. We first dug it a little deeper and definitely hit water.
3—While you dig the hole, try to make the hole into a heart shape. We dug out curves for the top of the heart and then more of a “v” shape for the bottom.
My niece and I and our sand heart photo
4—We also shaped the hole with our hands and extra sand to form the heart design. We placed the phone on a paper towel and experimented taking photos with it a few times until we got the photo to look like a sandy framed heart.
5—It overall took about 15 minutes to get the heart shaped hole the way we wanted it. You do need to have some patience with this.
6—We put the phone on a 10 second timer and had our group stand or kneel over the hole and look at the camera.
7—While the water we hit after digging down 2 feet didn’t allow us to dig deeper to get in a full heart shaped design in the shot, we were still happy with the results.
8—FILL IN THE HOLE WHEN YOU ARE DONE. I cannot stress this enough. There are many sea turtle nests on Sanibel during certain times of the year and a baby sea turtle can easily fall into a hole and not make its ocean destination if you leave a hole on the beach. This goes for all beaches too.
If you’ve ever fell into a hole that someone has dug on the beach or tripped on one, it is not fun! Also, digging too deep can be fatal (click the link to learn about an incident that happened with a sand hole that was dug too deep in 2024) so if your children are doing this, watch them closely.
My husband and I and our heart beach photo
Other beach photo ideas:
Travel Tripod
I have about 3 of these cool compact travel tripods. They fold up and fit in my purse or beach bag. I use them to take group photos often so I don’t have to worry with finding someone to take our photo.
Our wind blown beach loungers
Beach or Camping Loungers
My niece loved our inflatable loungers and they look super cute in photos. You use wind to blow them up but I am sure you could use a small air compressor to blow air into them if it was a windless day. We have people always compliment us on them. They are really comfy to lay or sit on. Just make sure you have them strapped down if it’s really windy because they can blow away if no one is sitting on them.
My niece and the Happy Birthday glasses
Fun Sunglasses
I love fun sunglasses for group group photos. We bought some Happy Birthday glasses for her to take a photo with as the trip was her 16th birthday present from my husband and myself. This luau sunglasses set has been used with our family when they visited us as well.
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Carolyn J. (C.J.) Braden is the owner of Carolyn’s Blooming Creations is a regular contributor and editor for CBC. She has been featured in numerous media publications such as InStyle Magazine, on HGTV, on Bustle.com, and more. She is the author of the books Georgia McMasters in Amethyst Lake Cemetery, How To Be Yourself: 3 Ways To Help You Being You, and the illustrator for the children’s book Bridging Connections. She is a former classroom teacher that now dedicates her life to educating others on how to live their most healthy, creative and happy life. Learn more about her visiting our About Us page.