If you can find the time between seaside trips, afternoons in the pub and updating your summer wardrobe, head to a photography exhibition for a bit of culture and inspiration.

Here’s three interesting exhibitions to see this summer, perfect to get you thinking about your next canvas print.

Gregory Crewdson: Cathedral of the Pines

Where: The Photographers’ Gallery, London

When: 23 June – 8 October

American artist Gregory Crewsdon will be taking over all three of The Photographers’ Gallery spaces with his Cathedral of the Pines exhibition – the first in the UK.

The series – produced between 2013 and 2014 – moves away from Crewsdon’s usual interest in “uncanny suburban subjects” and explores natural environments and human relationships. He describes this series as his most personal, even using own friends and family in photographs. The scenery is the vast surrounding forests of the small, rural town of Becket in Massachusetts, including the trail that the series is named after.

The Photographers’ Gallery describes his work as “visually alluring and often deeply disquieting”.

Arthur Elgort

Where: Atlas Gallery, London

When: Until 2 September

Showcasing 40 years of fashion photography and other work, this exhibition – Elgort’s first UK solo – includes well-known images including:

• Kate Moss in Café Lipp, Paris in 1993
• Christy Turlington in 1990
• Stella Tennant diving into a swimming pool in a winter coat in New York

The exhibition is said to “exemplify Elgort’s break with conventions”, and includes images he took of the Rolling Stones at Long View Farm in 1981. As well as his famous photographs, there will also be samples of never-before-exhibited personal work including a unique installation of vintage silver geletin prints.

Elgort says that his ability to capture movement as a result of working closely with dancers in his early career.

Using surround sound, projected digital moving images and photographs, the Big Picture Show brings to life people’s experiences of war.

The Big Picture Show

Where: Imperial War Museum, Manchester

When: Ongoing

The Big Picture Show, recently upgraded to the latest HD technology, creates a “complete sensory experience” that is totally involving and at times very moving. The seven shows are projected each day on walls that are 27-feet high in the Imperial War Museum’s main exhibition space, each focusing on a different aspect of war.

The timetable is as follows:

• 11am: The War at Home
• Noon: Children at War
• 1pm: Weapons in War
• 2pm: The War at Home
• 3pm: Weapons in War
• 4pm: Children at War

Let the show immerse you in the “heart of the action”.

This list of exhibitions should give you a head start in getting a bit of culture this summer, as well as sparking your interest in starting a new photography project. Check out our post on creating a vision board to help you get creative.