Guide
The permit question nobody tells visitors to ask.
Commercial photography on Hawaii state beaches requires a DLNR permit, only certain beaches are on the list, and officers do check. Here is what that means for your session.
Why this page exists
I would rather you booked someone legitimate than nobody at all.
This page does not sell anything. It exists because I’m an admin of a Hawaii photographers group with close to ten thousand members, and I watch this go wrong on a regular basis — most recently a photographer on another island whose clients were told mid-session that they were banned from the beach, with the officer photographing them so everyone would know.
If you book someone else, book someone else. Just ask the two questions at the bottom of this page first.
How it actually works
Four things worth knowing.
- 01
Permits are pulled per beach, through the DLNR
There is a specific state website for vendors to legally do business on the beach, and only certain beaches are available on it. A photographer working properly pulls a permit for your location before your session.
- 02
A permit can cover one end of a beach and not the other
North end versus south end, east versus west. It is genuinely possible to hold a valid permit and still be in the wrong place — which is why knowing exactly what your permit covers matters.
- 03
Officers do come and check
DLNR officers turn up at beaches and ask. If your photographer does not have the permit, the session stops. There are fines attached, and the photographer pays them — but you lose the evening.
- 04
Very cheap usually means unpermitted
Not always, and there are genuinely affordable photographers doing it properly — often newer ones building a portfolio. But a price far below everyone else on the island is usually explained by a permit and an insurance policy that do not exist.
What it costs you
You do not get the evening back.
Think about what a shutdown actually means. You have a four-year-old who was cooperating, light that took you a day to plan around, and a family that got dressed for this. Forty minutes in, it stops. There is no do-over that night — there is a reschedule, if your trip even has room for one.
That is the real cost of an unpermitted photographer, and it lands on you rather than on them.
Ask any photographer these two things
Two questions, thirty seconds.
“Are you licensed and insured?”
A working professional answers this instantly. I’m both, and have been since I went full-time in 2022 — the point at which I decided to do everything through the proper channels.
“Which beach permit are we shooting under?”
This is the one that separates people. The answer should be a specific beach — and ideally which end of it. Hesitation here is the flag.
I’ve never had a problem with an officer, because I do it by the book. Buy once, cry once.
Frequently asked
Permit questions
Yes. Commercial photography on Hawaii state beaches requires a permit pulled through the DLNR, and only certain beaches are available. DLNR officers do turn up and check.
You can be stopped mid-session and asked to leave, and the photographer can be fined. If that happens forty minutes into a session with a toddler, you do not get a do-over that evening. You get a reschedule.
Not on the beach itself. Commercial photography is not permitted there and the fines are significant. On hotel grounds with the hotel’s permission, yes. If a photographer offers you a Kaanapali Beach session, that is a flag worth asking about.
Ask two questions: are you licensed and insured, and which beach permit are you shooting under for our location. A photographer working properly will answer both without hesitating.
Permitted, every time
Sessions run start to finish, because the paperwork is done.
Next step
Tell me where you are staying.
I will come back with a beach, a time and the reason for both — usually inside the hour.