Summer Photo Journal: Curating the Heat

There’s a strange dissonance in the air.

While the sun is just beginning to show up consistently here in Ottawa, and we're barely stepping into summer, my inbox is already ringing with words like holiday edit, festive, and winter capsule. At work in the fashion world, the rhythm is always out of step with the seasons—Christmas comes in June, coats arrive before the first leaf falls, and you're never quite where you are.

Exploring Quebec City with a smile and a camera, capturing memories under the sunny sky.

This disconnect isn’t just professional, it’s cultural. We’re constantly being pushed forward, sold the next thing before we’ve even lived the present. Marketing doesn’t follow nature—it chases anticipation. And in that endless cycle, the now gets lost.

This year, spring barely happened at all. In Ottawa, we went from 5°C to 30°C in a single week. The blossoms held their breath and wilted before anyone had a chance to enjoy them.

Climate change isn’t a headline anymore; it’s the uneven rhythm of our lives. Weather that doesn’t make sense. Seasons that blur into each other. A sense of time that feels off-kilter.

But when I look back at my summer pictures—vivid, sunlit, slow—I feel grounded again. They’re more than just images; they’ve become a curated summer photo journal, built moment by moment, with care and intention. Each frame holds the heat, the laughter, the breeze on my face in some quiet corner of the world—selected with love, edited with presence.

And that… that is the kind of saturation I need: full color, full feeling, full life.

Lisbon Cais do Sodre people summer feet and skateboard

London flower market people buying sunflowers

Boat cruise on the Tejo River, Summer in Lisbon

Hidden Lisbon corners with tropical plants

Happy me summer selfie with colorful hydrangea

View from the Cinque Terre cliff

Cinque Terre Liguria Sea with bikes

Mexican Oaxaca street with walking art canvas

As part of my ongoing collaboration with Stocksy, I’ve made a curated summer gallery—a visual diary of sun-drenched days and fleeting moments I’ve taken the time to revisit and select while preparing this article.

Slowly but steadily, I have continued to build this archive since 2020, pulling images from deep in my hard drives and giving them the space they deserve. It’s a growing collection of stories I’ve lived, seen, and felt, and thanks to the editors, now also shared with care and enjoyed by a broader audience.

There’s something incredibly satisfying about seeing these images printed, too. Not just posted and scrolled past. Printed. On paper I can touch, pages I can flip, a story I can read again and again. A summer I can relive even when it’s snowing in June (jockes aside, today the weather is miserable over here!).

So this is my ode to real saturation. Not the kind you find on a screen, but the kind you find when you stop, when you stay, when you see.

Let’s not let summer slip past unnoticed.

Enjoy it!

t.