How To Master Summer Light For Fantastic Summer Photos

Are you won­der­ing how to mas­ter sum­mer light to get great pho­tos? My mot­to is “shoot for the light and not the loca­tion.” I say it all of the time. I tell my clients when I am pho­tograph­ing their ses­sions and my stu­dents when I am teach­ing them to take bet­ter pho­tos…I even tell my hus­band when he’s tak­ing trav­el pho­tos with his smart­phone. That’s why I’ve put togeth­er these ideas to help you mas­ter sum­mer light.

Learn­ing how to use the light cor­rect­ly will make your pho­tographs go from mediocre to absolute­ly amaz­ing! And what bet­ter time to use light than on these long sum­mer days.

Once you learn how to use the light, it is not that hard; it just takes prac­tice. Pick a week­end, fol­low these tips to mas­ter sum­mer light, and start using that light to get amaz­ing shots!

Tips To Master Summer Light

Pay Attention to Light

My first tip to mas­ter sum­mer light is to begin pay­ing atten­tion to whether the light is “hard light” or “soft light.”

Hard light cre­ates sharp shad­ows. There is a hard con­trast to this light. It is the light pro­duced on a bright sun­ny day with almost no clouds in the sky. The small­er the light source, the stronger the light. Most peo­ple will avoid hard over­head light, but I want you to search for it.

Sum­mer is the per­fect sea­son to seek out that hard light. Look for the strong light com­ing through the trees, the bright reflec­tions com­ing from the met­al of a play­ground slide, or the reflec­tions of a water
foun­tain. Don’t avoid it. Today I want you to seek it out.

Soft light is more gen­tle, soft, and under­stat­ed. It is the light that comes when the sun is dif­fused through the trees or is low­er in the sky.
Soft light’s tran­si­tion is much more sub­tle and del­i­cate and tends to be much more flat­ter­ing than hard light.

When learn­ing the light, soft light is by far the eas­i­est to use. It soft­ly falls over your sub­ject, almost wrap­ping them in light.

Use The Light To Set A Mood In Your Photos

Pho­tog­ra­phy is the art of telling a sto­ry, and you can use the sum­mer light to help tell that story.

How do you want your pho­to to feel? Dif­fer­ent types of light evoke dif­fer­ent emotions.

Hard light cre­ates more of an edgy look. It’s great for show­ing the heat of the sum­mer in a city.
Soft light is used to cre­ate emo­tion, nos­tal­gia and can be used to por­tray ten­der moments at the beach.
Flat light is often for­giv­ing and used when the pho­to itself is full of
char­ac­ter, and the light does­n’t need to be the star. Back­light tends to lend itself to a more nos­tal­gic look. It is the light that you get dur­ing the gold­en hour.

Play With The Light At Golden Hour

The gold­en hour is one hour before sun­set and shoot­ing at this time of day has many advan­tages. The light is magical…soft, warm and gold­en. It wraps itself per­fect­ly around your sub­ject. There is no bet­ter time than the sum­mer to get out and play with the light of the gold­en hour.

You want to be pre­pared when shoot­ing at Gold­en Hour as the sun fades fast. Get to your loca­tion ear­ly, get set up and make sure you think through your shot and your cam­era set­tings and shoot in man­u­al for the best results. 

It’s easy to play with shad­ows and tex­tures, as well as sil­hou­ettes with gold­en hour light but be aware that the shad­ows can some­times inter­fear with your subject. 

Have fun, play with lens flare and remem­ber that if you don’t get your shot one day, you can always return the next.

Play with Backlight and Silhouettes

Again mas­ter­ing sum­mer light and cap­tur­ing back­light and sil­hou­ette pho­tos real­ly comes down to under­stand­ing your cam­era set­tings. Head to the beach as the sun is set­ting and play with the per­fect sil­hou­ette. Any­thing can cre­ate a sil­hou­ette but you want to make sure that your sub­ject has a dis­tinct form, and it helps to have your sub­ject move. Twirling, spin­ning or jump­ing makes for a great sil­hou­ette shot, and noth­ing is bet­ter than cap­tur­ing your kids look­ing off into the dis­tance as the sun slow­ly sets. 

I love nat­ur­al light and sum­mer nat­ur­al, sum­mer light is mag­i­cal. Once you mas­ter sum­mer light your pho­tog­ra­phy pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less. Remem­ber to have fun when cre­at­ing those mem­o­ries, prac­tice and if you want to learn to under­stand your cam­era and its set­tings today, make sure to check out my Begin­ners Pho­tog­ra­phy Essen­tials Class!