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10 Creative Ideas for Summer Photography

By Sarah Foster | Inspiration

With gorgeous weather, frozen treats, and endless vitamin D, summertime is the perfect opportunity to stay busy and have fun while doing it. Be sure to bring your camera, or camera phone, along the way to document some of the best hits of your summer. With the BeFunky Photo Editor in your toolbox, you can make this summer your most creative summer yet! 

10 Creative Ideas to Inspire Summer Photography

With the BeFunky Photo Editor, you can tackle the most quintessential summer activities and create art while you’re at it! 

1. Start Your Day With a High Contrast Sunrise

Roll out of bed early to enjoy something only a few have, as the colors break across the horizon you can marvel at the beauty and snap a few photos while you’re at it! Adjusting the Contrast found under the Edit tab under Exposure in the BeFunky Photo Editor is a simple way to intensify the colors of your image while maintaining the integrity of your image. 

contrast sunrise

2. Add a Black and White Effect

Black and white photography is a tool that's been used for a long time to add attention to the details in your images. You can either use one of the B&W Tone Effects, or Black & White Effects in the Photo Editor to achieve this look. There are lots of different options of black and white filters to bring out the best details in your images!

bw toes in sand

3. Find Your Focus in a Hammock

A hammock exudes the feeling of summer. Swaying in the breeze, or soaking up the sun, it doesn’t matter what the rest of the day holds if you spend some quality time in a hammock! The Funky Focus tool is the perfect choice for a hammock photo, make sure that the center of Funky Focus is right on the hammock and the background will be blurred. This effect will echo the carefree feeling that nothing else matters when you're in the hammock!

funky focus hammock

4. Beautify Your Golden Hour

Just before the sun begins to fall behind the horizon, there is a time that has been coined as Golden Hour. The sun is low in the sky and offers a golden reddish tint to the sky that makes it perfect lighting for portraits! Grab a model or set up a tripod to capture a portrait and then use Beautify under the Edit tab to finish the process. This will simply amp up the colors and offer more contrast with the image for a polished golden hour portrait.

summer beautify

5. Add an Effect to Your Refreshing Drink

Whether you are at a beach or poolside, a frozen drink is always refreshing! Make sure to snap some photos of it to capture the memory. Shooting a drink in the center of the image, with a low focal point is an easy way to make your drink shine. Applying an Instant Effect as we did with Instant 8 for this image is a simple way to make your photo pop!

instant filter drink

6. Color Correct Your Floral Photos

Flower farms are an awesome activity to do in the summer and the perfect opportunity for some gorgeous photos. Although the fields of perfectly blossoming florals can stand on their own, adding a friend to the photo is a fun twist. Often outdoor photography can be unpredictable in its coloring due to where the sun is in the sky! Using the Color tool is simple to use and a great way to get the landscape looking how you remember it looking! 

summer color correction after
flower color correction before

Before

After

7. Blur the Background of Your Frozen Treat

Is there anything better than a fresh scoop of ice cream on a hot day? Grab a frozen snack and make sure to snap a photo of it in the process. Be sure to highlight its goodness by blurring the background with the Blur tool. You can change how blurry the background is and keep the clarity on the sweet treat. 

blur background summer

8. Sharpen Your Ocean Shots

Quintessential summer activity is spending some time near the ocean, watching the waves roll in. As the perfect wave breaks, snap some photos of it! There may even be some surfers catching a wave, they would make an awesome subject for a photo. Use the Sharpen tool under the Edit tab to increase the details of your image and marvel at the blue water.

sharpen ocean summer

9. Add String Lights and Use Lens Blur

To make an image artistic and interesting, grab some fairy lights and have your subject hold a handful, then you can hold one end next to the lens as you shoot! This will make for some really stunning images with cool Depth of Field, but you can also play around with Lens Blur after you have taken the images to add blur and bokeh!

string light summer after
string lights summer before

Before

After

10. End Your Day With a Sunset and Lens Flare

Just as you started your day bright and early to see a masterpiece by Mother Nature, you can end your day with one as well! Sunsets are a unique blend of colors as the sun slips down beyond the horizon, a piece of beauty that is often taken for granted. Using the Sunset option of the Lens Flare effect is an easy way to enhance the natural beauty that you are seeing.

summer lens flare

Get Creative With Your Summer Photography

Now that you have 10 ideas of how to bring creativity into your summer, get started on documenting those memories! Snap some photos with a frozen treat in hand, you can stay cool and look cool while doing it.

Photo Editing, Simplified.


Photo Editing. Simplified