Listen — the FIFA World Cup coming to Atlanta this summer is genuinely exciting. Eight matches at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, including a semifinal, running from June 15 all the way through July 15. It’s going to be electric. The city is going to be BUZZING, baybee!

It’s also going to be absolutely bananas.

Downtown Atlanta, Midtown, and anywhere near the stadium is going to be a whole situation on match days. And if you’re trying to schedule your family session this summer — and you should be, because summer light is something else — you’ll want to plan around it.

Good news: Atlanta is a big, beautiful city with incredible photo locations that are nowhere near the FIFA crowds. Whether you’re looking for woodsy and wild, small-town charming, or that lush in-town neighborhood feel, I’ve got a spot for you. Here’s where I’m pointing my camera this summer.

I know what you’re thinking. Atlanta in summer? The humidity alone is enough to make you want to close every tab and come back in October. I get it. I live here too. My hair has opinions about July.

But here’s the thing — summer is genuinely one of my favorite seasons to photograph Atlanta families, and I want to make the case for it. Because if you wait until fall (like everybody else), you’re competing with every other family in the metro area for the same three weekends, the same golden fields, and the same pumpkin-adjacent aesthetics.

Summer is wide open. And it is GORGEOUS. You just have to know how to work it.