Summer Photo Sessions

Summer has arrived in Charlotte and that means it is hot and humid. When I am booking photos sessions this time of year, I prefer to book them in the early morning.

To remain true to my style and create work that I think is pretty, I prefer early morning or late evening sun.

I always want to book the sessions when the light is the prettiest outside and that means when the sun is lower in the sky. Because there are a lot of trees in NC, I don’t want to start the shoot right at sunrise but around 30-45 minutes after. In July that means we are starting at 6:15-6:30am. I am usually awake by 4:30-5am so an early start is fine with me but I know I am in the minority here.

Evening sessions need to start around 7pm. The problem with this timeframe is we tend to have a lot of thunderstorms in the late afternoon and early evening. The other issue is because it tends to be really hot and humid, the dogs’ tongues are hanging out of their mouths before I even take the first photo.

I am fine with this but it might not be the dog mom and dog dad’s favorite.

Here’s an example of a photo I took on July 18th. Right smack dab in the middle of the summer.

There are tricks that I can try and I’ll ask the dog mom or dog dad to try some too in order to get the dog to briefly close his mouth.

Some dogs pant more than others. Some dogs have longer tongues than others.

If you want to book a summer session, my advice is to try and have the session early in the morning. Usually the temperatures are cooler in the morning but I never know with the humidity. Sometimes it is worse in the mornings and other times it is okay.

Maybe if we are lucky, we’ll get one of those rare summer days that are cooler with little to no humidity. That’s what I always wish for during the hot summer months!