Choosing Where to Take Your Couple Portraits
When we walk a venue for the first time, we are not really looking for pretty places. Pretty is easy to find and often unusable. We are looking for where the light will be at a particular hour, what sits behind you when you stand there, and how many minutes it takes to reach it in the shoes you will actually be wearing. Those three things decide almost everything about couple portraits, and they are worth thinking about long before the day.
Light direction comes first
The same spot can be wonderful at five o'clock and impossible at one. What changes is where the sun is, and whether it is falling directly on you or reaching you softly.
The most useful thing to know about a location is which way it faces. A west-facing terrace will catch warm light late in the day; an east-facing courtyard will be in shade by mid-afternoon, which is often exactly what you want. Open shade at the edge of a building, under a broad tree canopy or on a covered stoep gives soft, even light with no squinting, and it is available all day.
Dappled light, on the other hand, is the one to be careful of. Sun coming through scattered leaves puts bright patches and hard shadows across faces, and it is far more noticeable in a photograph than it is to the eye standing there.
Read the background
A background does one of three jobs: it adds to the picture, it stays out of the way, or it fights you. The third is more common than people think. Bins, marquee guy ropes, extension leads, parked bakkies, staff moving trays and a swimming pool cover have all appeared in the corner of otherwise perfect frames.
What we look for instead:
- Depth. Something that recedes, so you are not standing flat against a wall.
- Simplicity. A plain wall, a row of vines, an open field, a long gravel drive.
- Something local. Whitewashed gables in the Winelands, fynbos, a stone barn, a wide Highveld sky.
- Shade edges. The line where a building's shadow meets the sun is often the best light on the property.
It is worth asking the venue where the working areas are and where the service vehicles park during a function. That single question saves a surprising amount of trouble.
Count the walking time honestly
The prettiest spot on the property is frequently the furthest away, and a fifteen-minute walk each way is thirty minutes gone from a portrait window that may only be forty minutes long.
Be honest about the terrain too. Uphill in a long dress, across a gravel yard in heels, or down a path with loose stones all take longer than the map suggests. If a location genuinely needs a vehicle, arrange it in advance rather than deciding on the day.
A practical approach that works well: pick two or three spots close together for the main session, and at most one further location if the timeline has room. Variety comes more from changing the light and the angle than from covering ground.
Think in three layers
Good portrait sets usually have variety built into them. We tend to think in three kinds of frame, and a venue that offers all three within a short walk is a good venue for photographs.
- Wide, where the landscape carries the image and you are small within it.
- Mid, where you and your surroundings share the frame.
- Close, where it is only the two of you and the background is a wash of colour.
Close frames are the most forgiving, which means a difficult location can still produce lovely images if there is one patch of good light in it.
Weather and wind backups
Every location plan needs a shadow plan. In the Cape, summer wind can make a headland or a beach genuinely unworkable, and it often picks up in the afternoon. On the Highveld, summer thunderstorms build through the afternoon and arrive with little warning, then frequently clear again for a beautiful evening.
So for each spot you like, ask what happens if it is raining, or blowing hard, or if the ground is soaked. The answer should be a specific alternative, not a hope. A barn, a covered veranda, a large doorway, a chapel interior, a hotel corridor with a decent window: these are the places that rescue a portrait session, and they are worth identifying while the sun is out.
What to ask your venue
A short list of questions covers most of it. Which parts of the property are we allowed to use during a wedding, and are any areas off limits or booked by another function? Where does the sun set from here? Is there a gate or a neighbouring farm road we can step out to? Is there anywhere covered and reasonably lit if the weather turns? And is there anything being built, repaired or stored at the moment?
None of this needs to become a spreadsheet. Two or three good spots, chosen for their light, close enough to walk to, with one covered fallback, is a complete plan. The rest is a matter of turning up at the right hour and paying attention.
