I'm finding this to be a challenge. You have sun (or moon) and waves and water. You want to paint some people walking on the sand. The sand has wet places, dry places, and foot prints. There's the shoreline where the foamy little wave puddle slightly.
It helps if you've recently seen those waves, dug your feet into the sand. If you can still see that the movement is constant and dynamic. The clouds float, the surf churns. I'm trying to paint this convincingly. I want to hear the pounding and swish of the water, feel the wind on my face. I want my little figures to brace slightly against the wind. Their hair and clothing should be a little mussed.
We saw a semi-professional photographer shooting a pretty female showing a lot of skin on the morning we snapped these photos. The girl's hair was stiffly sprayed, her clothing carefully arranged. I'm not going for that. (Ahem!) I want to portray normal people having a good time chatting and slogging through the sand. They are enchanted with the sunrise and each other. Then, there's the guy under the palm trees who is raking up the seaweed and debris blowing around. He's amused by all the tourists, but this is a job to him. He's willing to work at it, enjoying the coolness, maybe, but this is where he spends all his mornings. His head is down, looking at his work. He's thinking about his workday, and is a little immune to sunrises.
