- City
- Adelaide
- Coverage
- Pre-wedding
- Edit
- Bright and clean by day, warm at sunset, black and white at the jetty
- Team
- Serkan
Sayuri and Shuto wanted two things from their pre-wedding session: bright blue skies and a sunset. Port Willunga, about 40 minutes south of Adelaide, gives you both in a couple of hours, and it was where Sayuri had pictured the photographs all along. Serkan photographed the session on a clear, cloudless evening in September 2026, from the grassy clifftop in full sun to the old jetty posts after the sun had gone down.
We planned it for late afternoon and kept a second date in reserve in case of weather, with the final call made a couple of days out. It was their first professional shoot together. They asked for photographs that felt editorial, cinematic and natural, with a mix of guided and candid moments. Sayuri brought flowers, dark red, coral and orange with pale dried grasses, and asked us to help keep her long train neat in every frame.
Up on the clifftop
We started up on the grassy clifftop at a quarter to five, with the sun still high over the sea and a deep blue sky overhead. Sayuri laughed as they walked across the slope. She wore a lace gown with a V neck, thin lace straps, an open back and a long train, her hair in a low bun. Shuto wore a beige suit, a white shirt, a black bow tie and a white flower buttonhole. At the edge of the clifftop, with the long curve of the beach below, Shuto kissed her cheek, and they kissed again behind her bouquet in the hazy light over the water. On the way down the sandy track through the coastal scrub, Sayuri stopped among the bushes on her own, then laughed up at Shuto.
The sandy point
The track led out to a sandy point above the beach, with the whole curve of sand and sea stretching away beside it. We took one wide frame of the two of them standing small on the point, then came in close as the light warmed. They stood with their backs to us, looking out at the sun on the sea, and Sayuri smiled back over her shoulder. The point is only a few minutes' walk from the clifftop, but it feels like a different place: open, sandy and bright, with the beach laid out below.
A walk along the beach
Down on the sand, a weathered timber post stood on its own below the point, and the two of them looked at each other beside it. Then they walked along the water's edge on a calm afternoon, small waves rolling in, holding hands and laughing towards the camera. Between the walking frames came quieter ones: their hands close together, her lace beside his beige suit, Sayuri smiling over Shuto's shoulder as she hugged him, Shuto leaning his head towards hers in the bright light, and the two of them arm in arm across the sand, seen from the waist down with the bouquet at her side.
Under the golden cliffs
By twenty to six the sun was lower and the sandstone cliffs had turned gold. We stood Sayuri and Shuto close against the cliff face, then let Sayuri laugh with her bouquet while the cliffs ran away along the beach behind her. On the rock shelf at the foot of the cliffs Sayuri spread her train over the stone, and Shuto took a turn on his own, smiling back over his shoulder with the beach and the sea behind him. Then they sat together on a sandstone ledge, with small caves cut into the cliff face behind them.
Sunset at the old jetty
Just before six we walked along to the old jetty posts, which stand at the water's edge among dark rocks and rock pools. The beach faces west, so the sun sets over the sea, and that evening it went down right behind the posts. The two of them walked hand in hand towards it in silhouette. Shuto lifted Sayuri off the sand with the sun behind them, she raised her bouquet to the sky while he held her up, and then they both laughed towards the camera among the posts in the low sun.
The veil in the wind
The long sheer veil came out at six, and we stood the two of them beneath it with the sun between them, the veil glowing gold around them. Her bouquet and the lace of her gown lit up against the sun, and so did her ring, her hands clasped around Shuto's back. There was just enough breeze on the beach to lift the veil, so when Shuto carried Sayuri along the sand past the rocks and the posts, it streamed out behind them in the wind.
Sunglasses and rock pools
Once the sun had gone, they sat together on the sand and looked out over the rocks and the sea in the last light, then leaned cheek to cheek with the sandstone cliffs behind them. Then came the playful frames. Both of them put on sunglasses among the posts, Sayuri's a black cat-eye pair, and she stretched out her arm with the bouquet, then lowered her sunglasses to smile at the camera. They faced each other beside the posts, and Sayuri sat on a dark rock between the rock pools, looking back along the beach towards the cliffs and the jetty.
Into the water as the light goes
We finished in black and white. Sayuri and Shuto walked out towards the posts at the water's edge and stood barefoot in the shallows, Sayuri holding up her gown while the wet sand reflected them both. They held each other among the posts, threw the veil up into the air, and waded and splashed between the old timbers. Our last frames were taken at twenty to seven, the two of them walking back along the beach at dusk under the cliffs, with the posts behind them.
