Spring Break Family Photos on Siesta Key

Read the table as three waves. Toronto and Ottawa come first, the week right after the clocks change. Calgary is off from Friday, March 19, Chicago, Pittsburgh and Fairfax follow on Monday, March 22, and Easter weekend and the week after bring Columbus, Montgomery County, Detroit and Louisville. In these calendars there is then a gap until Boston and New York in the second half of April. These are the calendars of the places families fly in from; Florida's own schools break on their own schedule, so it is the visitors' weeks, not the local ones, that fill the beach.

Good Friday, March 26, is a day off almost everywhere, so Easter weekend is the one point where many breaks touch. If your dates are flexible by a few days, the weekdays on either side of it are calmer than the weekend itself.

Boston and New York come in the second half of April, after the high season that Visit Sarasota counts from December to March. Sunset is then close to 8 pm, the Gulf is warmer, and the same evening hour finishes a little later than in March.

After the change the sun rises late, around 7:40 am in mid-March and still after 7:15 in early April, so a morning session does not mean a dark alarm clock. The beach faces west, so the sun rises behind you over the island: soft, even light rather than a sunrise over the water.

Every other month, with its own sunset times, is on my guide to the best time for family photos on Siesta Key, and Thanksgiving to New Year on my holiday family photos page.

I usually do not meet families at the main beach. I work from the small beach accesses along the key, with small lots and a walk of three to eight minutes from the car to the water, and the bigger the lot, the more people on the sand. As soon as you book, I send the meeting point with a pin and parking notes.

For an evening session parking fills up before sunset, so come ten minutes early; in the morning parking is easy. Sunday has one more crowd: the drum circle gathers at the main Siesta Beach an hour before sunset every week, Easter Sunday included.

Spring is well outside the rainy season. By the National Weather Service 1991-2020 normals for Sarasota-Bradenton, March averages 78 degrees by day and 58 at night with 2.9 inches of rain for the whole month, and April 83 and 63 with 2.5 inches. The summer storm season does not start until June. The Gulf is usually around 70 degrees in March and in the mid-70s in April, fine for paddling at the edge.

Spring is also on the windy side of the year, which runs to about mid-May by Weather Spark averages. A breeze in the hair is part of a beach photo. Red tide does not come every year; the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission explains it and posts the current status, worth a look the week before you fly.

The summer storm season is still months away in spring, but an evening can still be lost to rain or a grey sky. That is the reason to keep a spare evening in your week.

I decide about an hour before the start by the sky itself, not by a forecast days out. If the evening is lost, the session moves to another morning or evening of your stay and your deposit goes with it; if none is left before your flight home, you get back everything you paid, deposit included. How I make that call is in what happens if it rains on your session.