Did you see our most recent Photos of the Day? In our daily series highlighting some of the most interesting images in wedding and portrait photography, the editorial staff asks the creatives behind the photos to detail the backstory and technical approach. Here’s what caught our eye this week.

A Look Back at Summers in Brittany, by Sherrie Nickol

For her series Les étés en Bretagne (Summers in Brittany), photographer Sherrie Nickol photographed all of the images in the series at various beachside resorts located on both the north and south coasts of Brittany, France. Nickol says that as she and her family traverse their first summer of COVID-19, this series has “become even more meaningful to me, being both photographer and traveler. I miss the social interaction of lovers and families, bathers and friends, and hope for a time when all of us can return to the experience we have cherished in the past.”

Bride in Flight: A Very Lively Hora Dance

“I love Jewish weddings, and how amazing they are,” says Surrey wedding photographer Soven Amatya. At this wedding, the bride went all in. “Everything gets ratcheted up by a factor of 100 during the Hora,” Amatya says. “So fast-paced and lively that it can feel like a blur. The moments are full of fun and are even greater when everyone gets involved. Not every bride agrees to get thrown in the air, but I’m very happy this bride did!”

A Styled Photo Shoot in Arizona’s Dragoon Mountains

Couple Asura and Ivo—originally from Angola but now living in Tucson—were first spotted by photographer Jasmin Jade on Instagram. “They had already modeled for some photographers in the area and I thought they would be perfect for a styled shoot in Arizona’s Dragoon Mountains,” Jade says. “I love their look, I love their story and I love photographing in the desert. Here on scholarships, they met two years ago in Tucson and later found out that they were neighbors in their little town in Angola.”

How to Capture Love in a Pandemic

For this July pre-wedding shoot of Rohini and Vatsal in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood, Nathan and Thanh of Lightyear Studio had to endure 90-degree temps and make sure to have extra safety precautions because of COVID-19. “We wore masks—as did our couple for some of the images—and at times, in that kind of heat, it was hard to breathe and interact…but at least we were being safe.”

Roberto Valenzuela on Creating Shadows

When Roberto Valenzuela photographed this image in Pioneertown, California—an old Western set out in the desert—he says he was first working on a close-up of both models to show the level of sharpness attainable with the camera he was testing out—the new Canon EOS R6 and its line of RF lenses. Little did he know he would stumble onto a photo op that was created out of shadows. “When I took the R6 out of my face to pose the models, I noticed how neat the shadow of the tree on the left side of the frame was printed on the wall,” says Valenzuela, a Canon Explorer of Light. “To keep the fun of the shadows alive, I decided to reposition the models to create a shadow of their own.”

Dig into the Photo of the Day archives for more.