Well it looks like summer has finally arrived and in Scotland the glorious days we have in the spring are often the best time of year for location photography.
Unfortunately, this is a time of year which is often underused by clients for shoots which are very weather dependent such as architecture, buildings or housing developments. The reasons are understandable. April is the start of the financial year, and by the time clients have looked at their budgets and made plans for the year ahead it’s often not until well into the summer that the go ahead for photography is given. This often means that the photography is done over June and July which are often the worst months for weather and quality of light.
At the height of summer you find that on good days there is a lot more haze around and you don’t get the clarity you get on good spring and autumn days. The other problem is that during the middle of the day the sun is at it’s highest which makes for very uninteresting light. Everything is being blasted from directly above which means there’s no modelling or depth to the images.
In an ideal world you’d try and avoid this time of day. You will hear landscape photographers talk about the ‘magic hour’ of dawn and dusk where you get wonderful subtle colours and a low sun skimming across the landscape. With commercial photography however it would be impossible to limit all your available shooting time to this time of the day as timescales and budget rarely allow this. To get round this I always try and start very early in high summer to get better light or finish late for the same reasons but inevitably you find you’re always having to do some shooting in the middle of the day when it’s not ideal just to meet a deadline.
If you are planning any outdoor location photography which is weather dependent then now is great time to do it! Email or call us now on 0141 363 0013.