A place in Munich
Nymphenburg palace park.
The longest straight view Munich has to offer: from the canal to the palace, with two people in the middle of it. Nowhere else in the city gives a photograph this much room without looking empty.
What the place gives you
The water axis is the one big photograph people come here for. The palace stands at the end, the couple stands in front of it, and three hundred metres of water lie in between. A picture like that only works if both of them are allowed to be small — it lives on the distance, not on the face.
Behind it the park begins, and there it gets quieter. The avenues run dead straight and give you a closed canopy in summer and a colour in autumn that cannot be staged. In the afternoon there is backlight between the columns of the outbuildings, and the railings above the water are the kind of thing people lean on correctly without being asked.
When the light is right
Late afternoon, and considerably later than most people assume. The axis lies open; at midday the sun stands straight over it and puts hard shadows under the eyes. Two hours before sunset the light tips flat across the water, and from then on you have half an hour where everything is right.
Under cloud it is the other way round: the whole day is usable and the colours in the park are actually richer. Rain is not a reason to cancel. It is a reason to take in the arcades as well.
How a session here runs
Two hours is enough. We start at the back of the park where hardly anyone is standing and work forward to the axis — in that order, because the first ten minutes go on settling in anyway and nobody needs to see those.
There is not much walking. It is a few minutes from the car park to the axis and the paths are level. That is manageable in bridal shoes, though a second pair for the walk never hurts.
What you should know
I photograph here in the freely accessible areas, like any other visitor: no set-up, no tripods, no lighting. So there is nothing to register and nothing to pay — but there is also no cordon. If you want an empty axis, come early.
Summer weekends are busy. That is not a problem for the pictures, because we work at a wide aperture and the background goes soft, but it is a reason to come mid-week if you can arrange it.
Photographs taken there
If this is the place you have in mind, let us talk it through.
Fifteen minutes on the phone is enough to work out whether the place suits your occasion and when we should be there. After that you get a firm quote within 24 hours.
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