The St. Regis Aspen: The Light Through a Day

A formal brick hotel in a mountain town at eight thousand feet. The interior is warm and the air is not.

A formal hotel in a high mountain town produces a day with a sharper division than a lowland one, because the interior and the exterior are at opposite ends of the tonal range.

Inside, a hotel of this kind is warm and richly furnished: panelling, deep colour, heavy textile and warm fittings, which absorb light and put the rooms a stop or two below a pale interior with identical lamps.

Outside, at around eight thousand feet, there is roughly a third less atmosphere overhead than at sea level — which means correspondingly less scattering, so direct sun is harder, shadows go deeper, and the sky is a markedly deeper blue than anything a lowland photographer is used to.

And between them is the town itself, which is brick and stone at street level, in a valley that loses the sun early because mountains rise on both sides. Brick at altitude behaves exactly as brick does anywhere — a warm mid-toned reflector — but the light hitting it is harder, which makes the raking-light frames stronger and the bounce warmer.

This is the day in order. We have not photographed a wedding at the St. Regis Aspen; formal hotels and high mountain towns behave consistently. Which spaces are included, whether the lighting is adjustable and what may be attached are questions for their team.

The St. Regis Aspen at a glance

Where	Aspen, Colorado, at about 8,000 feet
Morning	Guest-room windows, and the town’s brick raked by low sun
Midday	The interior, which does not change, or full shade outdoors
Evening	The town, then the interval on the peaks, then a short crossing
Ask first	Spaces included, lighting control, room orientation and outlook

Morning and midday

The morning belongs to the guest rooms and to the town, and both are at their best early because the valley’s light is short at both ends.

The guest rooms are the interior daylight and the requests are the familiar ones: largest window on the shaded side, every overhead fitting switched off so the room has one colour of light, lamps out of frame, and two to three metres back from the glass so the fall-off is even across two faces.

At this altitude what is outside the window matters as much as which way it faces. A window onto snow is lit far more strongly than one onto bare ground, because snow is an enormous reflector throwing light upward as well as across — so the seasonal answer inverts the usual one, and a mountain hotel window in February is a better source than the same window in July. It is also cooler, because snow under a deep blue sky reflects that blue, which makes a custom white balance set on a face worth doing.

A window onto a lit mountain slope is the other good outlook, because it gives a tonal background with real depth rather than a busy street one.

Outdoors, the early hours are when the town’s brick reads. Brick is a warm mid-toned reflector rather than a dark absorber, which means a sunlit elevation is a genuine soft source: a couple three or four metres out from one, facing it, is well lit for nothing, with a custom white balance set on a face because brick bounce is markedly warmer than daylight.

And brick reads as brick only under raking light — light running along a wall lifts every course while light facing it square flattens it into a field of one colour. At altitude that raking light is harder and cleaner than at sea level, which makes the texture read more strongly, so the elevations the sun is skimming are the ones worth walking to find.

Through the middle of the day the interior is the venue and it does not change, which is the useful part: every indoor frame is movable, so the running order can follow the couple rather than the sun, and nothing is lost by stepping out later for the timed frames.

Outdoors at midday, full shade is required rather than advisable. At this altitude a face half in sun is unrecoverable rather than difficult, and the shade comes from buildings and dense conifer rather than anything with an open crown — spruce and fir absorb almost everything, which gives genuine full shade and three or four stops of free separation, though their narrow crowns mean standing inside a stand rather than under one tree.

The middle of the day is also when the interior measurements should be taken. The ambient, which in a warm furnished hotel is a stop or two below a pale one — measure rather than estimate. The bounce, which varies by space and needs one test frame each. And the colour survey: warm decorative fittings, cooler recessed downlights, candles and any coloured uplighting, of which one should be chosen as correct and the rest switched off or overpowered.

Evening, and the interiors

The evening in a mountain town runs early, because the valley loses the sun well before the published sunset time. That is worth establishing with the venue rather than calculating, and it means the last good hour outdoors arrives sooner than a lowland instinct expects.

In that hour the town is the asset: low sun in dry clear air rakes brick, stone and timber more strongly than the same angle at sea level, and a mountain town’s streets are narrow enough that the raked elevation and the shaded one are opposite each other — which gives both a lit background and a shaded standing position within a few steps.

Then the interval, which is the frame the location gives. The peaks above stay in direct sun for twenty or thirty minutes after the valley has lost it, which puts a couple in soft shade with brilliantly lit rock or snow behind them. The range is wide, so the faces need lifting by a close warm-gelled source rather than the peak being underexposed to match them.

A longer lens is what makes the peak read as a presence rather than a pale shape, and in dry clear air at this elevation it holds detail rather than hazing — which is why the frame works here and not in a humid climate.

The crossing follows and it arrives earlier and lasts shorter than a lowland one, because the mountains take the sun first and dry air holds less afterglow. It is a scheduled ten minutes with the couple already in position — and since the interior does not change, taking it costs nothing.

Inside, the evening is where a formal warm hotel does what it was furnished to do, and the method is to use its own light rather than replace it.

One source, off the camera axis, at face height, in a modifier large enough to be soft at working distance, gelled warm to match the room’s own fittings with white balance set to the gel, and exposed half a stop to a stop above the ambient. That reads as light belonging to the room, and the gel is the part most often skipped — an ungelled flash is much bluer than warm fittings, which produces a face that looks pasted in.

Over-lighting is the error and in a dark furnished hotel it is the commonest one. A face two stops above its surroundings floats in blackness and loses the only thing the room had.

Steep fall-off is the compensation: three metres of distance in a warm dim room puts natural darkness behind a subject with no equipment, which is free separation and the opposite of a pale modern room’s problem.

Warm bounce is the standing colour problem — panelling, brass and warm textile reflecting onto the shadow side of a face from several directions at once, localised and uncorrectable globally. And texture needs raking light, so the positions where the existing light already grazes a wall are the ones worth finding on arrival.

Decorative fittings are the best background material: at a wide aperture with real distance behind a subject they become warm points of light in the depth, which is exactly what a formal hotel does well — provided no bright fitting sits immediately beside a head, which is solved by moving the couple a step.

• Ask what is outside the guest-room window, not just which way it faces
• Rake the town’s brick early and late; at altitude the texture reads harder
• Full shade only outdoors at midday, and inside a conifer stand rather than under one
• Plan for the interval: lit peaks, shaded faces, one close warm-gelled source
• One warm-gelled source indoors, a stop above the room, never two

The Colorado high country year

At eight thousand feet in a ski town the winter is the principal season and it suits this kind of building well.

Snow is the reason. It lies for months and turns the exterior into an enormous reflector: it brightens every window in the hotel, fills the shadows a low sun carves, and makes the town’s brick read paler and softer than at any other time of year. For a hotel whose interiors are absorbent, that is a substantial gain.

Outdoors snow is the best natural fill available, fooling a meter by about two stops toward underexposure — so a snow frame needs deliberate overexposure relative to what the camera suggests. And snow against dark spruce is the widest natural brightness range there is: expose for the snow and let the conifer go near-black.

The December midday sun at this latitude reaches only about twenty-seven degrees above the horizon, which means the whole short day is raking light rather than overhead light — so the altitude’s hard-light problem largely disappears, the town’s brick reads all day, and the interval frame lasts far longer because a low sun keeps the peaks lit while the valley is already shaded.

Bare aspen against snow is the valley’s own winter frame: pale reflective trunks, white ground and dark conifer, a high-key palette unlike anything the rest of the year offers.

The costs are real. Cold and altitude both drain batteries, so spares belong in an inside pocket. The diurnal swing is well over twenty degrees Celsius between afternoon and evening, and a valley loses the sun early and holds cold air. An outdoor block is five minutes with coats rather than twenty without, and a cold body brought into a heated hotel fogs on every surface and does not clear quickly, so bodies stay bagged until warmed.

Summer in a high valley is short, green and cool. Afternoon convection builds almost daily from July into September and those storms produce lightning — which above the treeline or on open ground is genuinely dangerous rather than inconvenient, and Colorado has one of the highest rates of lightning casualties in the country. A named indoor alternative is a requirement, and at a hotel that is easy.

Mountain cloud is the best diffusion available at altitude: under it the brightness range collapses, the dappling disappears, and the whole valley becomes usable through the middle of the day.

Autumn is the short sharp best of the year and in this valley it is the point. Aspen turn gold typically in the second half of September at this elevation, and because a grove is clonal — genetically one organism connected below ground — the whole stand turns at once rather than tree by tree. That gives a uniform gold mass against dark spruce and a window of about a week either side of peak.

The air is also at its clearest then, which makes the compressed peak frames strongest — and gold aspen on the slopes above a brick mountain town, with a snow-dusted peak beyond, is the strongest frame the location produces all year. It is worth asking the venue what their slopes did in recent years rather than guessing.

Ultraviolet increases substantially with elevation and reflects strongly off snow, so a party outdoors for an hour burns faster than expected even in winter and even under cloud.

More frames from The St. Regis Aspen

The St. Regis Aspen wedding photography: common questions

What divides the day here?

The interior is warm and absorbent while the exterior at eight thousand feet is the hardest light in the country — opposite ends of the tonal range.

What should be asked about a guest room?

What is outside the window as well as which way it faces. Snow is an enormous reflector, so February beats July for the same room.

How does brick behave at altitude?

Exactly as brick does anywhere — a warm mid-toned reflector — but the light hitting it is harder, so the raking-light texture reads more strongly.

When does the evening arrive?

Earlier than a sunset table says, because mountains rise on both sides of the valley. Ask the venue for the actual date.

What is the interval?

The peaks stay lit for twenty or thirty minutes after the valley loses the sun — shaded faces with brilliantly lit rock behind, lifted by a close warm-gelled source.

When is the valley at its best?

The second half of September for clonal aspen gold, and winter for the light, when a low sun rakes all day and snow reflects into every window.

More Colorado venue guides

We are writing a photographer’s guide to every venue we would happily shoot in Colorado. Here are three more, plus the full index:

• The Sunrise Amphitheater, Boulder: What It Suits, and What It Does Not
• Windy Point Camp, Colorado: Field Notes on a High Mountain Camp
• The Woodland Park Zoo, Colorado: One Frame, and How It Is Made

All Colorado →

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