Christopher Harrison Photography
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Summer Landscape Photography UK

Summer Photography

Summer is the hardest season for the kind of photography I do. The canopy closes in, the mist mostly stops, and sunrise is at half past four, which limits the enthusiasm somewhat. So summer sends me elsewhere - up with the drone, out onto the open downland, along the Thames, and abroad.

What it does give you is long evenings, proper storm light, and the occasional morning in June when everything cools overnight and the valleys fill anyway. Those mornings are worth the four o’clock alarm.

All of these are available as fine art prints.

47 photographs · prints available
Sheer, Beachy Head
The cover photograph Sheer, Beachy Head See the print →
Golden Light reflects off the Shard in London, with St Pauls Cathedreal standing beside it from the viewpoint of Parliament Hill.
Sunset at the Shard London From £55
The red light of sunset reflects off 22 Bishopsgate in London, alongside the Gherkin and other skyscrapers in the City of London.
Reflected Sunset of The City London From £55
The full moon of July 2026 rises alongside the London skyline, showing the iconic Canary Wharf buildings.
Rising Full Moon over Canary Wharf London From £55
The full moon rises over the growing and glowing London skyline of Canary Wharf during blue hour after sunset.
Full Moon over Canary Wharf London From £55
A whitewashed chapel dome sits among manicured gardens at blue hour near Chlorakas, Cyprus. A crescent moon and two planets hang in the deepening sky above the horizon glow, while artificial lighting picks out bougainvillea and palm canopies below. The scene reads more as resort documentation than composed landscape work.
Crescent Over Chlorakas From £55
A temperature inversion buries the valleys beneath a level sea of cloud as the sun descends to the horizon, its disc just visible above the fog layer. Mountain ridges break through the white surface in the foreground, anchoring the scene. The unbroken amber sky above gives the image a clean, restrained luminosity.
Into the Level Sea Cairngorms National Park From £55
A single fully-open sunflower faces the camera amid a field of drooping, spent heads as a stormy golden sky builds behind. The contrast between the one blooming flower and its exhausted neighbours gives the image a quiet narrative quality, though the composition lacks the decisive framing and spatial tension needed for competition level.
The Last One Facing The Chilterns From £55
A single sunflower rises above a dense stand of weeds or wild herbs, its yellow disc catching the last warm light of a summer evening. The shallow depth of field compresses the surrounding vegetation into soft, muted green, isolating the flower against the tangle. The composition carries a quiet tension between abundance and solitude.
One Rises The Chilterns From £55
A field of sunflowers occupies the foreground as the sun sets behind a treeline, casting warm light across rolling agricultural land. The sky holds layered cloud in peach and violet tones. The scene is competently exposed but lacks a singular focal point or compositional tension.
Sunflowers at Day's End The Chilterns From £55
Mature beech woodland in the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, in full summer leaf, the canopy casting a diffuse green light across a floor deep in last autumn's mast husks. A young beech sapling rises beneath the dominant central trunk, its fresh foliage catching what little brightness filters through the overcast sky. The flat light flattens depth and reduces the scene's atmospheric potential.
Green Light, Full Leaf The Chilterns From £55
A mixed conifer woodland at dawn, the forest floor carpeted in bracken turning from green to russet in the late-summer heat. Residual mist filters the light between the tall trunks, softening the middle distance and lending the scene a quiet, layered depth. The diagonal branch and dominant foreground trunk anchor an otherwise open composition.
Bracken Turning The Chilterns From £55
A moss-clad broadleaf tree extends a long lateral branch across a conifer plantation floor carpeted in fern, the tall trunks receding into soft morning fog. The contrast between the sinuous, low-growing tree and the regimented verticals of the surrounding conifers gives the scene quiet tension. Captured in mid-August when the bracken still holds its full summer green.
The Long Reach The Chilterns From £55
A deep-red full moon clears the horizon beside a solitary hilltop copse during blue hour on a summer evening. The warm lunar disc — its surface maria clearly resolved — holds in precise tension with the cool blue of the deepening sky and the dark mass of the trees. Stubble-field furrows anchor the foreground, grounding what is otherwise a celestial event in the agricultural English countryside.
Blood Moon at the Copse Brightwell Barrow From £55
A two-seat Supermarine Spitfire trainer finished in shark-mouth livery and marked 'Grey Nurse' crosses above a patchwork of summer fields and woodland. The spinning propeller blurs against a partial cumulus sky, placing the aircraft in mid-flight isolation. The image documents an air-to-air encounter rather than a landscape moment.
Grey Nurse Climbing Oxfordshire From £55
A two-seat Supermarine Spitfire, marked 'ZP-W' and named Grey Nurse with shark-mouth nose art, crosses a patchwork of summer fields and a small lake somewhere over lowland England. The air-to-air perspective places the aircraft in tight relationship with the rural ground below. The image is technically competent but sits firmly in aviation rather than landscape photography.
Shark Mouth Over the Fields Oxfordshire From £55
A Supermarine Spitfire in RAF markings — codes ZP-W and a shark-mouth nose detail — banks steeply above a patchwork of summer fields and woodland. The air-to-air perspective places the aircraft centre-frame against a broken cumulus sky, the rolling English lowlands receding to a distant horizon beneath it.
Spitfire Banking Over Summer Oxfordshire From £55
A thistle silhouetted against a low, haze-diffused sun compresses the scene into stark amber and black. The spined stems and burr-like seed heads read as graphic mark-making against the luminous disc. Captured at dusk in August, the image distils late-summer's coarseness into something geometric and still.
Amber and Black From £55
Beachy Head lighthouse stands isolated in calm English Channel waters below the sheer white chalk face of the Seven Sisters cliffs, East Sussex. The aerial perspective flattens the geometry of cliff, shore, and sea into near-abstract bands of colour, the lighthouse reduced to a small vertical accent against the turquoise. Midday light removes shadow relief from the cliff face, flattening texture in the brighter sections.
Small Light, Great Chalk South Downs From £55
Beachy Head's chalk cliffs fall sheer to a flat calm English Channel, the red-and-white banded lighthouse standing isolated on its rock platform below. Shot from a high vantage at midday in high summer, the image trades atmosphere for scale and graphic clarity. The parched downland above the cliff face records the dry conditions of July.
Sheer, Beachy Head South Downs From £55
Beachy Head lighthouse stands isolated at the base of the chalk cliffs, dwarfed by the headland's sweeping face. Shot from a high lateral vantage, the image pits the geometry of eroded chalk strata against the flat blue of the English Channel. The midday light is clean but harsh, flattening shadow detail across the cliff face.
Dwarfed South Downs From £55
The skeletal remains of Brighton's West Pier sit isolated in the English Channel, framed against a crowded summer beach and the dense Victorian and modern townscape beyond. Shot from a high vantage point in strong midday light, the image documents rather than interprets, with the ruined iron structure providing the sole focal anchor in an otherwise busy frame.
What's Left of the West Pier South Downs From £55
An overhead view of open gneiss transitioning into boreal woodland on the Cairngorms plateau, captured in flat summer light. Sparse conifers punctuate the peatland surface, while a thin drainage channel traces a branching line through the saturated ground. The absence of shadow and the muted palette flatten the scene, limiting tonal separation.
Gneiss Landscape Cairngorms National Park From £55
Fractured coastal rocks scatter across a sandy beach as long exposure reduces the incoming surf to a smooth, luminous wash. The vivid turquoise of the water contrasts with the warm ochre sand, the motion-blur lending an almost dreamlike stillness to an otherwise turbulent shoreline. Captured mid-afternoon in late spring.
Fractured Rock, Smooth Water Assynt From £55
A low sun breaks through storm cloud above a horseshoe bay, casting starburst rays across green clifftop turf and pale sand. The long exposure smooths the incoming Atlantic swell to a pale wash against the beach, while darker cumulus holds the eastern sky. The cliffs, beach geometry, and quality of Atlantic light suggest the north-west Scottish coast.
Starburst Over the Bay From £55
The incredible landscape of North West Scotland, here seen from above with my drone. The distant mountains, the calm blue ocean, clear pastel sky and white beaches below all combine together into a magical sunset capture of this dramatic landscape.
Sunset over Assynt Assynt From £55
Dense mist settles between mature beech trunks in the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, diffusing the early-morning light to a soft, even green. A young beech sapling in the middle distance draws the eye through successive planes of receding trees, each rank progressively dissolved by fog. The dark leaf-litter floor anchors the composition against the luminous canopy above.
September Grey The Chilterns From £55
Late Summer / Early Autumn Fog, lush greens, beautiful beech trees with tons of character, Chilterns, UK
Late Summer Fog The Chilterns From £55
Ground mist lingers between tall beech trunks in the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, at early dawn, the sun breaking through the canopy to backlight the fog and separate successive layers of woodland into receding planes of blue-grey. The forest floor remains in deep shadow, drawing the eye into the luminous middle distance where the atmosphere thickens.
Dawn Between the Trunks The Chilterns From £55
For this Summer photograph, I captured beech trees that were backlit during a foggy sunrise. I just love the pillars of the beech trunks, and the deep greens of the leaves. Temperatures in summer are now often very high, and woodlands provide essential shelter and cooler temperatures for our wildlife. Trees are extremely efficient at absorbing heat, and helping cool our environment. From a composition perspective, I love how these trunks work together in silouhette. The low growth on the central tree provides a key focal point to the photograph, and as you study it, your eye is drawn to various other aspects, such as the glowing light in the woodland void behind, the younger trees in the foreground and the deep greens at the edges of the frame. I also love the monotone style of this photograph, being blacks, greens and whites. I captured this photograph with my Sony A7RIV paired with the Sigma 24-70mm f2.8 DG DN Art lens. Camera Settings were 3.2s, f/11, ISO100 at 48mm focal length on a tripod. Note: There was no wind on this morning, hence the use of a long shutter speed without impact on the photograph. I wanted to ensure the light was "glowing" through the trees, and that the trees were silouhetted. Award winner
Sheltered in Summer The Chilterns From £55
A ruined brick tower stands alone on a harvested hillside above the Thames Valley, south of Reading, as the sun drops below a distant tree line. Heavy cumulus catches the last orange light while mist gathers in the valley floor below. The composition uses the folly as a solitary anchor against a wide, dramatic sky.
The Folly and the Stubble The Chilterns From £55
An aerial view across open blanket bog and scattered Scots pine looks north towards the Cairngorm massif, the hillsides still carrying the purple flush of late-summer heather. The flat midday light flattens depth and drains atmosphere, leaving a faithful document of the habitat rather than a composed image.
Bog and Massif Cairngorms National Park From £55
Aurora Borealis (northern lights) shining brightly in the night sky above some tall pine trees deep in the Cairngorms National Park, Scotland
Aurora Borealis (northern lights) shining brightly in the night sky Cairngorms National Park From £55
Northern Lights over the Cairngorms
Northern Lights over the Cairngorms Cairngorms National Park From £55
The aurors borealis (northern lights) that glowed in the skies of August 2024 was a spectacle I will not forget. You could see the pillars of light dancing in the sky with the naked eye - and on the camera the colours truly came to life. I enjoyed capturing it through some tall scots pine trees, a wonderful palette of colour.
Aurora under Scots Pine Cairngorms National Park From £55
The Milky Way core rises above a wooded Highland loch on a clear August night, its magenta-violet galactic band arching from horizon to zenith. A warm afterglow lingers behind the distant Cairngorm plateau while multiple satellite or meteor trails streak the deep-sky field. Still water in the foreground mirrors the darkness of the scene without resolving a clean reflection.
The Core Above the Loch Cairngorms National Park From £55
A sphagnum-filled bog pool interrupts a broad sweep of flowering heather on the Cairngorms moorland, seen from directly overhead in late summer. The acid-yellow mosses form an irregular void at the centre, surrounded by the purple of Calluna in full bloom and scattered birch scrub. The nadir perspective reduces the scene to colour and texture, suppressing all horizon and scale.
A Pool in the Heather Cairngorms National Park From £55
Diffuse morning mist lifts through a mature broadleaf woodland in the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, backlighting a canopy of summer beech and oak and reducing the mid-ground to soft planes of green. Ferns carpet the floor between straight-trunked beeches, anchoring the composition while the illuminated fog dissolves detail towards the upper frame. The restrained palette and quiet tonal separation give the image a contemplative stillness unusual for high summer.
Mist Lifting, Green Canopy The Chilterns From £55
Spring Greens
Spring Greens The Chilterns From £55
Durdle Door at last light in late January, the limestone arch silhouetted against a graduated pink and amber sky. The elevated viewpoint encompasses the full sweep of the bay, warm-toned cliffs framing turquoise shallows. A distant island sits on the horizon beneath receding cloud.
Durdle Door, Late January Dorset From £55
Durdle Door is silhouetted against a vivid winter afterglow on the Jurassic Coast, Dorset. A moderate long exposure softens the incoming waves without erasing their form, preserving the diagonal sweep of the shoreline. The arch frames a sliver of lit horizon, the only gap in the darkening headland mass.
The Last Gap of Light Dorset From £55
Durdle Door at sunset on a January evening, the long exposure smoothing the incoming tide into pale silk against the shingle. The natural limestone arch frames the burning horizon, its silhouette anchoring a sky of deep amber and rose.
Silk and Shingle Dorset From £55
A sheltered coastal cove opens to the sea beneath a sky ignited at sunset, the calm water mirroring orange and crimson cloud. A stepped path and wooden railing descend from the clifftop foreground, anchoring the composition in the human scale of the landscape. Captured in late January, the low winter sun sits just below the horizon, its afterglow saturating both sky and sea surface.
The Cove Burns Dorset From £55
A forked lightning bolt strikes beyond the rooftops as a summer storm rolls across a North African medina at dusk. The illuminated minaret of the Koutoubia Mosque anchors the right frame against a bruised, layered sky, while warm sodium light from the city below stains the rain-curtain amber to the left. The tension between the artificial warmth and the cold storm front gives the image an unusual chromatic and dramatic coherence.
Lightning Over the Medina Marrakech From £55
Twin sea arches cut through limestone headland as the last afterglow settles over a calm Atlantic. Long exposure has smoothed the water to a pale teal, drawing the eye through the archways to the open horizon. Isolated sea stacks punctuate the foreground cove.
Twin Arches, Last Light Algarve From £55
Two agave plants send up tall flowering spikes above a bleached desert floor, the larger specimen dominating the foreground against a featureless pale sky. The mono conversion strips back colour to reveal the structural contrast between the spent basal rosette and the vertical thrust of the bloom stalk. A second, smaller plant recedes into the arid scrub, establishing quiet scale and repetition.
Two Agave, Bleached Ground From £55
Twin sandstone stacks rise from a sheltered cove as the last light drains from a cloudless sky. The long exposure has smoothed the water to a pale mirror, emphasising the sculptural weight of the eroded cliffs that frame the scene. The location — characteristic golden limestone, layered cliffs, and sea-arch formations — is consistent with the Algarve coast of southern Portugal.
Two Stacks, Draining Light Algarve From £55
A moss-covered beech trunk rises steeply from the understorey of a Chilterns woodland in Oxfordshire, the worm's-eye perspective compressing a dense summer canopy into a luminous green ceiling. The upward viewpoint emphasises the tree's dominance while secondary stems behind echo the vertical thrust. Flat overcast light holds the scene together without distraction.
Looking Straight Up The Chilterns From £55