About Yuriy, Sarasota
I am Yuriy, a family photographer in Sarasota - and I am the one who shows up
When you book a family session with Yuriy Photography, the person you meet on the beach is me.
Mini sessions from $200. Full family sessions from $350. Booked online, with a live calendar.
I answer your questions, help you choose the location, arrive with the camera, work with your children, and after the session I edit the photographs myself.
There is no handing your booking to a photographer you have never seen before.
I photograph families, couples, maternity and proposals in Sarasota and on the Florida Gulf Coast. A large share of my family sessions happen on Siesta Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island.
Almost ten years behind a camera
I have worked professionally in photography and video for more than nine years.
Creative work came into my life earlier than that. For about ten years I was in music - a DJ, a music producer and an event organizer. Weddings, photography and video came later.
Today I photograph more than people. I also work with architecture, real estate and yachts, so I constantly deal with different light, difficult spaces, reflections, weather and locations that never look quite the same twice.
Family photography is still different.
A house does not get tired of being photographed after twenty minutes.
A three-year-old very well might.
That part of the job I learned somewhere else entirely.
Three kids of my own taught me what photography school cannot
I am a father of three.
That does not mean every child is instantly happy to see a man with a camera. It means I do not expect them to be.
If a two-year-old has decided the photo session is over, asking for one more smile usually makes things worse.
So I change the plan.
The child can play with the sand or walk toward the water, and I photograph what happens around them. Sometimes I start photographing Mom and Dad instead. It is surprising how often a child who flatly refused to be photographed suddenly gets curious about what is going on the moment nobody is calling them.
There is no single method that works with every child.
I look at the situation and adjust.
Why I photograph families this way
I try to make the most important photographs first.
The whole family together. Grandparents with the grandchildren. The combinations of people the family came for in the first place.
But I do not want to spend the whole hour making forty versions of one frame where everyone stands in the same spot.
Once the main photographs are done, we can move.
Walk along the water. Pick up a child. Let the kids run. Talk to each other. Forget about me for a few seconds.
Very often my favorite photographs happen right before or right after the frame everyone thought was the main one.
It is between the posed photographs that people usually start looking like themselves again.
What I edit by hand
Every photograph I deliver is edited individually.
I do not put one filter on the whole session and export everything the same way. I work with light and color, clean up distracting backgrounds and remove strangers when they get in the way of a good frame.
On a busy Sarasota beach that genuinely matters. There can be hundreds of people around us during the session, and there is no reason all of them should stay in your family photograph.
And I want skin to still look like skin.
My job is to make the photograph clean and finished without turning a person into something artificial.
The principle is simple - remove what gets in the way, keep what should stay.
Why I know these beaches
I photograph families on Siesta Key, Lido Key, Longboat Key and Anna Maria Island regularly.
When you work on the same coast again and again, you start to know things that are not in the usual guidebook.
How a beach changes as the sun moves. Where it gets crowded. How very light sand plays with clothing. When a resort property gives us better light and shade than the open beach. When it is simpler for a family to stay near where they are staying instead of driving across town.
And a crowded beach does not mean we have a problem. I can work around people during the session, and on a good finished frame I can remove distracting passers-by if needed.
I would rather solve these questions myself than make a visiting family figure them out before the session.
What clients mention most after a session
The wording in the reviews varies, but a few things keep coming up.
Parents talk about how I work with children, and about patience.
Families say the process turned out easier and calmer than they expected, including with large groups.
And many notice how quickly they get the result.
That is exactly what matters to me - that the session itself is easier than the family imagined, that children are allowed to be children, and that nobody has to wait weeks for the photographs.
Where I photograph
My main territory for family sessions is Sarasota and the nearest part of the Gulf Coast.
Siesta Key - family sessions and short mini sessions.
Lido Key - families, couples, maternity, morning and evening sessions.
Longboat Key - the beach, a resort or a vacation rental, when the property's rules allow photography there.
Anna Maria Island - for families staying farther north who want to be photographed where their trip is happening.
Depending on the job, I also travel to other places on the Gulf Coast.
Book a session with Yuriy
The Sessions page shows what each session includes, the open times and how booking works.
And if you are not sure which beach or which session suits your family, just send me a text and tell me where you are staying.