10 sun-soaked photo stories to soothe your summertime sadness

It’s official: summer in the UK is drawing to a close. Already, there are hints of an autumnal breeze in the air, and crunchy leaves underfoot. On the plus side, at least we won’t have to wonder about the ethical implications of basking in the sun amid a climate crisis for too much longer…

Of course, while it may soon be time to start pulling our woolly jumpers out from the back of the wardrobe, that doesn’t mean that we can’t still enjoy summer vicariously. Over the years, Dazed has amassed a collection of sweltering, sun-soaked photo stories that can help keep the long nights and lazy days of summer alive, if only in our hearts.

There are days by the beach to rival a scene from a Luca Guadagnino film, sweaty nights in Ibiza, and a beauty story set against the blow-out backdrop of a New York City summer. Elsewhere, you’ll find photos of carefree festivalgoers in Portugal, dispatches from Notting Hill Carnival, and images from the “vibrant queer wonderland” of Amsterdam Pride. Find all of these, and more, below.

On the southwestern slopes of Mount Vesuvius sits Torre del Greco, home to an apartment that Giovanni Rombaldoni came to jokingly call “the Models’ Bootcamp”. Inspired by the stereotypically-Italian surroundings – cracked plaster, trailing plants, baking terracotta – the photographer shot his model friends over the course of four summer days, from Sorrento to Pompeii. The resulting series, In Vacanza, is a true snapshot of “la dolce vita”.

“We’re struggling and it’s not our fault,” the 22-year-old photographer Saffron McLeod told Dazed in 2024. “It’s down to the housing crisis, the climate crisis and the invention of social media, among other things.” And yet… amid the escapist dancefloors and beachside early mornings of a dance festival in Portugal, where a few friends were slated to perform, McLeod and her friends found moments of beauty and reprieve – a juxtaposition summed up by her philosophy of “optimistic nihilism” – captured in the photo series In Debt, In Doubt, In Dance.

Miro Lovejoy Teplitzky’s Youth is inspired by a real story of summertime romance – specifically, a writer’s story about falling in love for the first time while on a family beach holiday as a teenager. Channelling filmmakers like Godard, Fellini and Paolo Sorrentino, the photos themselves are sun-drenched and timeless, shot on an undisclosed Greek island with a cast of “young people being themselves in the heat of the summer months”.

Summertime often sees us jet off to a different place, but what about escaping to a different time? This collection of Ibizan photos by Oriol Maspons, published by IDEA last year, brings together portraits of the Spanish island’s culture from the mid-50s to the 1980s, painting a multifaceted picture that captures its days as a hedonistic hippie enclave and a clubbing mecca alike.

Curated by the London-based photographer Rio Blake, this series of photos brings together image-makers including Martin Parr and Matt Stuart, Isaac J Cambridge, Holly-Marie Cato, and Stefy Pocket to celebrate the famed street festival. “Carnival is important because it champions London for what it is – a hub that celebrates diversity, inclusivity, and community,” as Blake told Dazed in 2023. “However, it also enhances these ‘Londoner’ qualities to the max, as everyone descends onto the streets of west London and gets together to experience the finest foods, sounds, and costumes.”

Taking place at the height of summer, Milkshake Festival is in prime position to kick off Amsterdam’s Pride celebrations, and it certainly doesn’t hold back. When photographer Szymon Stepniak went to capture the event in 2024, every moment was a “burst of joy and spontaneity,” he told Dazed, whether it was a late arrival greeting all their friends with a kiss, or revellers pole dancing in a neon-lit club.

Set at Limanakia, a gay nudist beach located approximately half an hour from Athens, Helias Doulis’s photo series takes us back to an era of classical beauty, via Greek poetry and sun-kissed, sculptural male nudes. Tucked away from the world, in a state of seemingly endless summer, it seems “the most appropriate place to create an island in the middle of nowhere, a refuge, made out of rocks and flesh,” the photographer says.

The London-based Filipino photographer and filmmaker Ezekiel explores “joy, liberation, and sexuality through the lens of a queer immigrant who grew up in the UK” in their 2022 photo series Bliss. Nude bodies are illuminated by a golden morning sunlight, while others – clad in swimwear, or white y-fronts – are shown interlocked in balmy parks, or the intimate space of a tiled bathroom.

The models in this collaboration by photographer Ramona Jingru Wang and hairstylist Julia Elena have nowhere to be, and all of summertime New York before them. “I am always very touched by the unapologetic energy on the streets in the Lower East Side,” Wang told Dazed in 2024, adding of the photographs: “We wanted to create this utopian feeling, where people turn into these playful little creatures that are just having fun in the city.” This is helped along by the hair styling, which sees colourful braids twisted into masks, but also the pure blue skies and stark sun that lights the surrounding facades.

Of all the locations around the world most synonymous with summer, Saint-Tropez might be one of the most iconic. In the mid-60s and throughout the 1970s, Brighton-born photographer Philippe Garner spent many summers around the Cote d’Azur, and brings its nostalgic, super-saturated, sun-dappled visuals into the 21st century with this series of photos. “Life was analogue in the 1970s. Every bit of it, the smell the texture, the colour,” he told Dazed in 2023. “Things felt more tangible… There was something so innocent and magical about the raw physicality of the world in life in those years.”