A Kenneth Cole Summer-Style Campaign Under Hard LA Light

Treating hard sun as the look

A summer fashion campaign in the Kenneth Cole summer vein, city menswear and womenswear with light fabrics, sunglasses, sandals and loafers worn sockless, is a brief where the season itself is the subject. Most fashion photographers spend their careers avoiding midday sun. For a summer campaign, leaning into it can be the whole idea.

Hard overhead light produces deep eye-socket shadows, crisp cast shadows on the ground and bright, saturated color. Instead of hiding these, design around them. Turn the model's face up toward the sun, let a hat brim cut a clean shadow line across the face, or place the model so a building edge splits the frame into light and dark. The result reads as heat before anyone notices the clothes.

Managing exposure, skin and heat

Expose for the highlights on skin and white fabric, then let the shadows go where they go. With a modern full-frame sensor you can lift them a little later, but the campaign look usually wants contrast. A silver reflector or a small strobe at low power can open the eyes just enough without flattening the scene.

Polarizers deepen blue skies and cut reflections off windows and car paint, but check them on skin, where they can make faces look waxy. ND filters let you shoot at f/2 at 1/250s on a bright rooftop if you want shallow depth of field, or use a camera with high-speed sync and keep the strobe in play.

Heat is a production problem as much as an aesthetic one. Rooftops in July can be ten degrees hotter than the street. Bring a pop-up canopy for talent between setups, plenty of water, blotting papers, and someone whose job is to keep makeup from sliding. Rotate looks so no one model stands in direct sun for long.

In a summer campaign the sun is not the problem to solve. It is the wardrobe nobody had to pull.

Warm palettes that hold together

Summer campaigns usually lean warm: sand, terracotta, cream, sky blue, citrus accents. Coordinate wardrobe, props and location so the palette is mostly decided before the shoot. A rooftop with a pale concrete deck and a pool reflecting blue sky already gives you half the color story.

In the grade, warm the highlights slightly, keep skin from going orange and protect the blues. A split-tone with warm highlights and neutral or slightly cool shadows feels like late afternoon even on a frame shot at noon. Test the look on a few frames in Capture One during lunch so the afternoon setups can be adjusted on the spot.

Wardrobe can carry the palette as much as the grade. Ask the stylist for one accent color per look at most, and keep sunglasses, belts and footwear in a tight family of browns and tans so the product reads cleanly against warm concrete and pale sky. Sockless loafers and leather sandals photograph best with a slight tan on the model and a quick moisturizer pass on ankles, which hard light shows mercilessly.

Los Angeles rooftops and how to book them

Downtown Los Angeles is full of rooftops with skyline backdrops, from hotel pool decks to converted office buildings around the Historic Core. Many are available through location agencies or directly from building management, and most require a FilmLA permit and a certificate of insurance. Some also limit crew size and equipment weight, which matters when you are carrying sandbags and C-stands up a service elevator.

Scout with a sun-tracking app such as Sun Seeker or PhotoPills. Neighboring towers can throw a building's deck into shade by early afternoon, and a skyline that looks good at noon may flatten out by four. Plan setups by where the sun will be, not by which corner looks best during the scout.

Have a wind plan. Rooftops are gusty, and light fabrics, hair and reflectors become sails. Weight every stand and keep a clamp on the hair stylist's kit. For a Kenneth Cole summer-style campaign, a little wind in a linen shirt is welcome; a reflector blowing off the roof is not.