Summer sessions in Philadelphia heat: how to not melt

In late June the sun does not set here until around half past eight. Golden hour therefore starts at about half past seven, which is after bedtime in most houses with a toddler in them. That conflict, not the heat, is the real problem with summer sessions.

The bedtime conflict

Summer light in Philadelphia is genuinely beautiful and it arrives at a useless time.

Sunset around 8:20 to 8:30 in June and early July means the good light runs from roughly 7:30 onward. If your children go to bed at seven, you are choosing between bad light and an overtired child. Overtired children do not photograph as relaxed children. They photograph as overtired children, and no amount of skill hides it.

The three honest options:

Shoot early in the evening in open shade and accept even, flat, pleasant light instead of golden light. Perfectly good photographs, no drama, everybody in bed on time. This is what I recommend most often.

Push bedtime once. For a school-age child who can handle a late night, fine. For a two-year-old, do not.

Book a morning. Which is the answer people resist and then thank me for.

The case for sunrise

Sunrise in Philadelphia in June is somewhere around half past five, which is an unreasonable thing to ask of anybody. But you do not need sunrise itself. The hour after it is just as good, and by seven in the morning you still have soft, low, warm light.

What a morning session buys you in summer:

• Light identical in quality to evening light. Physics does not care which end of the day it is.
• Temperatures fifteen or twenty degrees lower than late afternoon, on a bad week even more.
• Empty locations. Places that are unusable at six in the evening are yours at seven in the morning.
• Children at their best. Small children are more cheerful and more cooperative in the morning than they will be at any other point in the day. This is the real argument.
• Less haze. Summer afternoons in this city go milky. Mornings are clearer, particularly for anything with the skyline in it.

The cost is getting everyone out of the house, which is a genuine cost. But you are trading one difficult hour at the start for a session where the light, the temperature and the mood are all on your side.

Shade is a strategy, not a fallback

Midday summer sun in Philadelphia is close to unusable for portraits: high overhead, shadows in the eyes, everyone squinting. But open shade — standing out of direct sun with open sky above — is soft, even and excellent, and it is available all day.

Where to find good shade rather than bad shade:

Good: the shadow side of a large building, under a broad continuous canopy, a tree-lined street, a covered walkway. What you want is even shade with light coming in from one open side.

Bad: dappled shade under a thin tree, which throws bright blotches across faces and is far harder to work with than either full sun or full shade. This is the single most common mistake in amateur summer photographs.

Location matters here. The Wissahickon under full canopy is noticeably cooler than the street and evenly shaded all day, which makes it the practical answer to an August session. Open field locations like Valley Forge are the opposite: no shade at all and best avoided until evening.

Managing actual heat

Philadelphia summers are humid as well as hot, so sweat does not evaporate and everyone is uncomfortable faster than the temperature suggests.

• Water for everyone, brought with you. Not something to find later.
• Arrive already dressed and ready so nobody spends the session getting hotter and more irritated.
• Keep the walk short. A ten-minute walk to a location in ninety-degree heat spends the goodwill before we start.
• Hair and makeup will not hold the way they do in October. Plan lighter.
• Build in a sit-down. Shade, water, five minutes. It costs nothing and resets everyone.
• Watch the very young and the very old. Babies and grandparents are the two groups who suffer first, and neither will necessarily say so.

If the forecast is genuinely extreme, I would rather move the session than photograph a family enduring it.

Summer storms are an opportunity

Philadelphia gets afternoon thunderstorms through the summer. They tend to build, break hard and move on within an hour or so, rather than settling in for the day the way spring rain does.

Which means a storm in the forecast is not automatically a cancelation. Frequently the best light of the entire summer happens in the twenty minutes after a storm clears: the air is washed clean of haze, everything is wet and reflective, the temperature has dropped ten degrees and there is often dramatic broken cloud with sun coming through it.

So the summer approach is to stay flexible on the hour rather than cancel the day. Full details of how that works in the rain backup guide.

Ticks, mosquitoes and poison ivy

Not glamorous, and worth two minutes of your attention.

Ticks are present in this region and Lyme disease is a real concern in Pennsylvania. They live in long grass and leaf litter, which describes several of the meadow locations I recommend. Repellent before a meadow session, and check everyone afterwards, children especially.

Mosquitoes come out at dusk near standing water, which unfortunately is exactly the time and place a lot of good photographs happen. Repellent applied before we start, not once everyone is being bitten.

Poison ivy grows freely along trail edges throughout the region. I keep sessions to the paths and the mown ground, which handles it.

What to wear when it is 90 degrees

The usual guidance in the what to wear guide holds, with summer additions.

Natural fibres. Linen, cotton, light denim. Synthetics trap heat and show sweat far more obviously.

Lighter colors in sun. Dark clothing absorbs heat and makes an already hot session worse. This is comfort, not aesthetics.

Loose over fitted. Cooler, and it moves in a breeze, which photographs well.

Consider the sweat question honestly. Pale grey and pale blue show it most. Patterns and mid-tones hide it.

Sun hats for babies, which look good in photographs and are not optional in July.

Shoes that survive wet grass, since morning sessions mean dew.

Booked well, a summer family session is one of the easiest of the year: everyone is off school, nobody is cold, and the evenings are long enough that a delayed start is not fatal. It just needs the hour chosen deliberately rather than by default.