CEWE launches its 60 days of Summer competition - enter your best shots now!

CEWE kicks off its 60 days of Summer competitions where you can submit your summer shots for top photography prizes

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest
(Image credit: CEWE)

We’ve teamed up with CEWE to kick off our 60 days of Summer competition where we want to see your best summer shots and the most impressive entrants will win some incredible prizes.

The 60 days of Summer competition is open to all UK entrants over the age of 18, and we want to see your favourite summer shots right the way through to August 31st. To kick off the contest, we’ve put some summery photo tips below that you can use as inspiration.

The winner will take home a digital subscription worth £200 including Digital Camera, NPhoto, PhotoPlus and Photography Week magazines, plus you’ll also receive a CEWE product voucher worth £100. There are also £75 and £50 CEWE product vouchers up for grabs for 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

By the way, if you submit your photos to the 60 days of Summer competition, you can also enter the CEWE Photo Award competition at the same time! The CEWE Photo Award has 10 categories: Sport, Landscape, People, Nature, Animals, Travel & Culture, Food & Cooking, Hobby & Leisure, Architecture & technology and Aerial Photos. There’s a huge €250,000 in prizes, with 1st place taking a holiday worth €15,000, €7,500 worth of photography equipment, €2500 in CEWE products and an award.

Plus, for every photo submitted, CEWE donates €0.10 to global charity SOS Children’s Villages, supporting disadvantaged families across the world. Click here for more information on the CEWE Photo Award 2023. Enter now!

Shoot backlight portraits

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest

(Image credit: CEWE)

The summer is a brilliant time to practise some outdoor portraits, whether that’s taking pictures of your friends and family on holiday or with a pre-planned shoot with a model. Shooting outside in the natural sunshine is a great way to get into portraiture as you don’t need any specialist lighting or a studio. The bright summer sun can be very harsh however and this can result in unflattering lighting, heavy contrast and your subject may be left squinting if they’re facing the sun. Instead, it’s a good idea to have them turn their backs to the sun to backlight them, this will create a beautiful rim light effect around their profile. If they are now too dark and in silhouette you could use a reflector or a hotshoe mounted flashgun to add a little fill light to reveal any lost details.

Don't shoot in harsh light

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest

(Image credit: CEWE)

While it’s great to be out in the summer sun it can be very harsh which can lead to tricky exposures and strong contrast. If you can, move to a shaded spot in a city, or a wooded area when shooting in the great outdoors to escape the harsh sun for softer lighting and gentle shadows. Don’t be put off by overcast days either, these are brilliant for photos too because they create low contrast and nicely balanced exposures as the clouds act as a massive softbox in the sky making shadows much more subdued.

Use lens filters

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest

(Image credit: CEWE)

Filters for your lenses don’t cost the earth and can be a cheap way to add a bit of fun to your summer shots. The great thing is you can pick up a budget pack of screw-in filters for a kit lens and this will open up your creative options, whether it’s a sepia filter to boost the warm tones of a sunrise or sunset, or a soft focus filter to give your portraits a beautiful diffused quality, or even fractal filters that give you a quirky kaleidoscope effect. If you’re shooting landscapes we recommend investing in a good selection of neutral density (ND filters) for long exposures, graduated NDs to tame bright skies and a circular polarising filter to boost blue skies as well as reduce hard reflections on water or glass.

Make use of the golden hour

The golden hour is the hour immediately after sunrise or before sunset and gets its name because the low angle of the sun bathes everything within your scene in a magically rich golden glow. This lighting is extremely flattering and photogenic for all sorts of images from wildlife to portraiture and landscapes to street photography. Be sure to arrive at location just before the golden hour so you have plenty of time to prepare and get set up. In the height of summer the sunrises at 4:38am so you’ll want to set an early alarm or stay out late until the sun is about to set if you’d like to give it a go!

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest

(Image credit: CEWE)

… and don’t forget blue hour

CEWE 60 days of Summer contest

(Image credit: CEWE)

The blue hour, also called the ‘magic’ hour, is the hour immediately before the sun rises or after the sun sets. Shooting in the blue hour in the evening after sunset is usually preferable as you don’t have to get up super early, you can go out to shoot and sunset and then stay out for the hour afterwards as this is when you’ll see some of the best colours in the sky as clouds get lit up in beautiful oranges and reds turning into pastel pinks and fading into incredible blues. Capturing your night shots at this hour is much more photogenic as after the blue hour is over the sky will become totally black and lose its detail.

Now it's time to submit your shots!

This month, we want you to enter your best summer shots to be in with a chance of winning a digital subscription to Digital Camera, NPhoto, PhotoPlus and Photography Week magazines, plus a CEWE product voucher worth £100. There are also £75 and £50 CEWE product vouchers up for grabs for 2nd and 3rd place. 

From fun family photos to an impressive sunset, or colourful street shots to fabulous florals we want to see your best summer photos. Enter for your chance to win some top prizes before the closing deadline 31st August 2022. Good luck! Enter now!

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