So the Creatively Squared challenges have had a bit of an overhaul this month. From now on, each month will feature a specific topic and each week there will be a challenge based on that topic. June is all about lighting and how you can use it to change your photos. To start us off, we were encouraged to have fun with sunlight under the #cs_chasethesun hashtag. I always shoot using natural light but I do admit to editing the fuck out of my photos. It’s because I’m currently shooting on two very messy pieces of white cardboard so I need to do a lot of work to get it clean again. I don’t do much other than making the background a bit whiter but my photos always do have a slightly artificial look about them. So, I had to find a way to approach this that would mean avoiding my dirty backdrop.

I had a great plan in mind. Last week the weather was so nice that I’d decided I would take my camera to work and take some shots on my lunch. Unfortunately, the weather decided to change for the worse and the sun was replaced by wind and rain. I got a few fun shots but it wasn’t what I’d hoped. I couldn’t even get out much this weekend because of the bloody rain. But I tried my best and got some fun sun pics.

There’s a lot of lens flare and some fun with shadows and I’ve bundled in a few old pictures of the sky around sunset. The most popular of all the photos is the shadowy Penguin book but I’m not sure if that’s because of the shadow or because of the Penguin book. I always find my vintage Penguin editions get the most attention these days. I really liked the glasses one. I love the way the shadow highlights the glasses and the sun gives the whole thing a bit of warm feel. I think it could have been better quality but I like the idea. And I’ll always love a bit of lens flare in my photos. It annoys me in films but I’m happy if I can snap it. I guess that’s just the hypocrite in me!

So, how would you have approached this hashtag?