For this month's Photo Album, we asked some of our favourite photographers to send in pictures of their summer memories.
Heat prickling on your bare back, the warm glow of long afternoons spent in good company, never needing a coat, not bothering with makeup; the better is it, the quicker it goes. Ahead, 14 photographers tell us their memories of summer the way they know best – through the lens (with a few extra words.)
If you would like to contribute to next month's album, please get in touch by email. You can also submit via Instagram with the hashtag #R29photoalbum; keep an eye on our feed for the next theme @Refinery29UK.
More from the series:
Becky, Muskoka, 2016
We were spending the weekend at a friend's cottage in Muskoka, Ontario. She was taking a nap on the sofa and the sunset light hit her so beautifully. She caught me hovering over her taking pictures and fell right back asleep with a hint of a smile still on her face.
Stephanie Noritz
I took this image of my boyfriend Theo during a bike ride in Chicago. We decided to rest after I fell and scraped my leg. Even though I have three new scars on my foot from this day, it's still one of my favorite memories of the year.
Cassidy Turner
Photographed by Cassidy Turner
A quick chilly lunchtime swim and BBQ beside a pristine lake in Southern Sweden whilst spending two weeks on the road, exploring, camping and getting sun burnt. This is what summer memories are made of.
Peter Haynes
I made this picture during a summer project in Germany. Spent a morning picking flowers during my research.
Lauren Hillebrandt
After a lazy Sunday in New York (we stayed in town after back to back weekends of travel), we enjoyed a perfect no-filter sky over Queens. A perfect way to start a new week, and season, perched on the patio of my favourite local hang.
Mary Fletcher
My favourite summer memory was an impromptu trip upstate with my best friend Jeffrey. I love walking around in the woods and taking a mental break from the lights, screens, and sounds of the city.
Bridget Collins
In this part of Italy the sun sets over the active Volcano, Stromboli. In the day time you can see it sitting on the horizon, steadily seeping clouds of cotton-wool-like smoke, and at night the odd spark of lava glows faintly. Despite the picturesque view, I couldn't help but fixate on the person I love standing in front of me.
Anna Jay
This was the last frame on my roll of film the night before leaving France this summer. Whenever I shoot Florence in extremely low light I set my camera to 30th of a second and keep the lens wide open. My dad always tells me that without a tripod it will be too blurry or too dark, but it always comes out just the way I like it.
Matilda Hill-Jenkins
I spent a lot of my summer at a close friend's home in Sussex. It was little Zephy's first summer ever, and at three months old she was still in the full swing of breast feeding. I was intrigued by the taste so caught a droplet, then went for a full squirt (who knew they squirted like that?!) and it was far less flavoursome than I'd expected. Just very subtly sweet. We sat in the garden naked with little Zephy and took photos of ourselves doing crabs and cartwheels – what a summer should be.
Stephanie Wilson
My first road trip around California and looking out the window to see palm trees left, right and centre. California to me seems to be a very special place, but even more magical as this trip was my honeymoon.
Steph Jed
I grew up in a village called Painswick, just a few miles away from where the UK’s main annual cheese rolling contest takes place. The petrifying Gloucestershire competition involves people running (read: falling, somersaulting and leaping) down a “hill” which more accurately looks like a grassy cliff. The aim is to chase for and win a wheel of Double Gloucester cheese that’s thrown ahead of the competitors. Yes, it really is as simple as that.
I’d always avoided going, having heard ominous rumours for years about the racers’ injuries and the sheer idiocy of the tradition. But this summer, I bit the bullet and took a few London friends along to Cooper’s Hill for the event. I guess I wanted to show them the most eccentric thing possible about where I’d grown up.
We climbed the hill, greeted en route by savvy villagers selling cool squash for 50p a glass. When we reached the event it was packed, full of punters perched on the incline waiting for the tumbling to begin. The first race was over in a flash of mud, bruises and blood. It was hard to watch but electrifying. We soon realised we’d also got there just in time for the women’s race. This portrait is of Florence Early, the winner of the chase with her Double Gloucester reward in tow. It turned out she was a fellow photographer living in Berlin who’d grown up in the area and had returned just to take part. I admired her bravery and felt inspired to take part myself one year… maybe.
Holly Falconer
However beautiful a place is, and however far away it makes you feel, there will always be an object in sight that takes you right back home.
Joe Earley
This was my warmest summer so far. For the first time, I’ve been taking sun cream out with me in London. Here’s one of my photos of Fern. She always misses bits when she puts suncream on.
Rosaline Shahnavaz
I went to Greenland this summer with my girlfriend and her family. This is a photo of her mum Kista, who was born in Greenland and moved to Denmark when she was five. This was the first time she had been back since she was seven and here she is on top of the ice sheet wearing a seal skin jacket under the midnight sun.
Luke Norman
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