Although summer is not officially over just yet, the days are beginning to grow shorter and the light is beginning to shift ever so slightly. School supplies have been purchased and classes have resumed for many of us. I always wish for two more weeks…just two more weeks…of time to enjoy the lull of the summer schedule. In this post, Viewfinders are sharing our Best of Summer of images as we celebrate the last remaining days of summer.

Midsummer, Tobago by Derek Walcott

Broad sun-stoned beaches.

White heat.
A green river.

A bridge,
scorched yellow palms.

from the summer-sleeping house
drowsing through August.

Days I have held,
days I have lost,

days that outgrow, like daughters,
my harbouring arms. 

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I begin to scroll back through photos of adventures and moments trying to hold on to the magic of summer. I’m endlessly thankful for my camera. Grateful for the candid and blurry and posed images alike. Grateful I chose to get in the frame with my kids. Grateful for photography and how it magically brings back the smell, light, sound, and feel of the moment the shutter clicked. I can close my eyes and be transported back to Big Sur, California with my husband and kids. ~ Laura

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My garden chives come up like clockwork every spring, but I always know that summer is here when they start to bloom. This aerial view of an emerging chive blossom captures, for me, the magic hidden inside every growing thing. ~lucy

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We spent a week in the Egadi Islands, off the coast of Trapani in Sicily. While our base was in Marettimo, my husband and I decided to visit the other two islands and for two blissful hours we wandered the streets of Levanzo (having already visited Favignana with our children), in awe of its pretty harbour and carless streets. As we waited for our return boat, we enjoyed a spritz and talked about returning to these beautiful islands. Kirstin

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My family had a magical summer. We went on a beautiful family vacation to Italy. While there, my daughter got engaged to her love. We came home and planned a wedding. The wedding was beautiful and sweet and everything we could have hoped for. When thinking of a photo that could capture all of that, I was stumped. Then I came across this one. This guy. Without him, none of it could have happened, and none of it would have been quite as glorious. He loves our family and me so well. ~Staci Lee

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For our short, two week trip to the Canary Islands, I had planned to take a small, light, cheap camera so I slipped my thrift store Pentax K1000 into my hand luggage at the last minute. Little did I know I had rewound a roll of film for a double exposure project and forgotten to finish it. The surprise came when I received the scans! There were so many good ones and among them, this gem: my daughter among succulents in the ocean!

Maite

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I’m not taking a vacation until September, so I’ve snuck in a few hours of summer vacation locally here and there where I can: hiking, swimming in lakes, relaxing with friends, and reading (and playing with apps on my phone!) in my hammock.
-Deirdre

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During July many summers ago I shot a pack of monochrome Polaroid Spectra film by the Impossible Project. The resulting images all have this dreamy, hazy feeling of summer and sunlight and holiday that I have dreamt of replicating since. ~ Jenny G.

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I told my students to help hold me accountable for a summer photo project where I endeavored to photograph the milky way. This is the last one I shot for the summer from the shore of a public beach in Northern Michigan. I learned so much about night sky photography and yet there is still so much more I can work towards mastering. –Angie

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I love capturing my nephew at play. I love how he finds delight in so much around him. I love his joyful spirit and how he teaches me to play. Here he is on the last day of July, on one of our many walks. –Chinwe

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