Light, seasons and photography
Published
Most disappointing wedding photography is a scheduling problem. The light was there; the schedule put everyone somewhere else.
Work backwards from sunset
The single most useful planning act is to look up the sunset time for your date and your location, write it down, and build the running order backwards from it.
In this part of England, sunset moves from around half past nine in late June to about seven in late September, and to four in the afternoon in midwinter. That is a swing of five and a half hours across the year, and it changes the entire architecture of a day.
The consequences are concrete. A December ceremony at two in the afternoon has perhaps ninety minutes of usable daylight after it, all of it dim. A June ceremony at two has seven hours. The same running order applied to both produces one excellent day and one where the group photographs happen in the dark.
The hour that matters
The period roughly an hour before sunset produces low, warm, directional light that flatters everything and everyone. Photographers plan around it because it is the difference between competent pictures and memorable ones.
The problem is that this hour almost always collides with the wedding breakfast. Two solutions, both routine:
Break the meal. Slip out between courses for fifteen minutes. Guests barely notice, the photographer gets the light, and you get a quiet quarter of an hour together in the middle of a day that offers very few.
Time the speeches around it. Speeches before the meal, or between courses, frees the relevant window.
Tell the photographer the sunset time when you first discuss the day, and ask them to tell you which fifteen minutes they want. They will have a firm view.
Midday light is the difficult one
A cloudless day in July at one in the afternoon is the hardest light of the year to photograph in. The sun is nearly overhead, it produces deep shadows in eye sockets, and it makes everyone squint.
Overcast is easier. A high thin cloud layer is the most flattering light there is, which is why photographers are noticeably relaxed on grey days and quietly concerned on brilliant ones.
Practical mitigations: hold outdoor ceremonies in open shade rather than direct sun, avoid placing the couple with the sun behind the guests, and identify a shaded spot for group photographs before the day.
Orientation, and how to check it on a viewing
Which way a space faces determines when it has light and what kind.
- South-facing terraces and lawns get sun for most of the day and are harsh at noon in summer.
- West-facing spaces get the evening light, which is the good light. A west-facing terrace is worth a great deal.
- East-facing gets the morning and is in shade by the afternoon — often a benefit for a hot summer ceremony.
- North-facing rooms have soft, even, constant light all day, which is why artists have always wanted them. Excellent for getting-ready photographs.
On a viewing, work out which way the ceremony space faces, and ask where the sun sits at the hour you intend to use it. Anyone who runs the venue knows the answer immediately.
Try to view at approximately the time of day, and if possible the time of year, that you intend to use the space. A barn viewed at eleven on a bright March morning tells you nothing about the same barn at seven on an October evening.
Interiors: windows, ceilings and what they do
Three architectural facts shape indoor photography more than any decoration.
Window area. A room with generous windows can be photographed in available light, which looks natural. A room with two small windows requires flash, which looks like flash.
Ceiling colour and height. Photographers bounce light off ceilings. A white ceiling at a normal height is a giant soft light source. A high, dark, timbered barn roof absorbs everything, which is why barn interiors are technically demanding.
Wall colour. Strongly coloured walls tint bounced light and therefore tint skin. A deep green dining room is beautiful and will require correction.
None of these should decide a venue. All of them are worth mentioning to a photographer in advance so they bring the right equipment.
Artificial light after dark
Once the sun has gone, every photograph depends on what the venue has installed. Festoon lighting, candles, uplighting on stone, lamps rather than downlights — these produce warm, workable pictures. Bare fluorescent tubes and modern white downlighters do not.
Ask what the evening lighting looks like and, if you can, ask to see a photograph of the space at night rather than the daylight shot in the brochure. Ask also whether the lighting is dimmable, and whether open flame is permitted, since many venues restrict candles for fire or insurance reasons. That restriction question sits alongside confetti and fireworks on the viewing list.
Season by season, in one paragraph each
Winter. Very short days, all photography effectively indoors or in the last of the afternoon. Compensations: firelight, candles, and a genuinely distinctive look. Move the ceremony earlier than instinct suggests — a midday ceremony in December leaves usable light afterwards, a three o'clock one does not.
Spring. Long enough days, unreliable weather, and the countryside at its freshest. The strongest argument for spring is that hedgerows and gardens are doing something. The strongest argument against is that you will need a wet weather plan that genuinely works.
Summer. Maximum daylight and the hardest midday light. Late ceremonies work here in a way they work nowhere else in the year.
Autumn. The best light of the year, low and warm from mid-afternoon, with colour in the trees. Sunset comes early enough that golden hour lands during the drinks reception rather than during the meal, which removes the scheduling conflict entirely.
When to hold a wedding sets out the weather and demand picture month by month; this page is about what each of those months does to the pictures.