Newark Country Club, Delaware: The Problem and Four Ways Out of It

Open turf, no cover, and green everywhere. But there is relief here.

A golf club presents a small number of problems that recur at every club in this guide, and this one has one advantage that most Delaware venues do not: it is on rolling ground.

Northern Delaware sits above the Fall Line, on the edge of the Piedmont, which means rolling country with rocky soils, stream valleys and mature deciduous woodland. Nine-tenths of the state is flat coastal plain. That relief is the single most useful topographic feature a photographer can have and it exists nowhere else in Delaware except this northern corner.

The problems are the standard club set. There is no overhead cover across most of the property, which under a seventy-three-and-a-half-degree June sun makes open turf unusable for portraits in the middle of the day. The landscape is uniform, so a wide frame from one hole looks much like a wide frame from another. There is almost no texture at close range. And from May to October everything is green, which is the least useful background colour there is.

Each of those has a specific answer, and the relief solves more of them than anything else does.

Newark sits at about thirty-nine and two-thirds degrees north. The June noon sun reaches around seventy-three and a half degrees, the December noon sun about twenty-seven, days run from about nine hours twenty to fifteen hours, and civil twilight is around thirty minutes.

We have not photographed a wedding at this club. Which spaces are included, what course access is available and when, whether a cart is offered and what the permitted hours are, are questions for their team.

Newark Country Club at a glance

Where	A golf club in northern Delaware, on the rolling Piedmont fringe
The advantage	Relief — nine-tenths of Delaware is flat coastal plain, and this corner is not
The problems	No cover, a uniform landscape, no texture, and green for half the year
Four ways out	The gradient; the woodland margins; scale; the season
Ask first	Included spaces, course access and timing, cart availability, hours

The first two ways out

The first way out is the gradient, and it is the one that does the most work because it answers three of the four problems at once.

From below the subjects on any rise, they stand against open sky with no horizon behind them. That is the cleanest background available in any conditions and any weather, and it drops every flag, cart path, bin, building and guest below their level out of the frame — which solves the clutter problem completely. It also removes the green, because sky is not green.

From above them, the course and the treelines fill the space behind, which is a different photograph entirely — the place rather than the people.

Two completely different frames from one spot, decided by walking twenty metres uphill or down. On a flat course neither is available, and the fact that this one has the option is the strongest argument for it over a Delaware coastal-plain club.

The gradient also solves groups. A large group needs everyone visible, which on level ground means either a raised camera or a compromise. On a slope the level change is free: arrange the group up the hill with the camera downhill and every face is visible without anyone standing on anything.

The requirement is everyone in the same light — full open shade, full overcast, or full sun with the sun behind the camera — and on uneven ground, finding the flattest bench and arranging in ranks across the slope rather than up it keeps heads at the same height when that is what is wanted.

The second way out is the woodland margins, and in northern Delaware they are unusually good.

A course cut into Piedmont hardwood has boundaries of tulip poplar, beech, oak and hickory, with American holly and eastern redcedar in the understorey — and the last two are the ones to find. Holly is Delaware’s state tree: evergreen, dense and very dark, which makes its margin one of the few genuinely near-black backgrounds available anywhere in the state. Redcedar does the same.

A subject standing a metre inside a holly or cedar margin, facing out toward the sunlit turf, has soft directional light in front and three or four stops of near-blackness behind. That is a free studio portrait with a dark background, at any hour including the middle of a July afternoon, and it also solves the green problem because a dark evergreen mass at three stops down reads as near-black rather than as green.

The hardwood margins are the lesser version: soft even light with a green cast, corrected by standing two metres inside the edge and facing out rather than going deeper, where the transmitted green becomes a problem only a warm-gelled source or a position change fixes.

Tulip poplar is worth naming because it is the most useful large tree in this region: very tall, very straight, with a high canopy and pale grey bark, which means the space at eye level is open and the background at eye level is a field of pale vertical trunks rather than of foliage. American beech does something similar with smooth grey bark, and distinctively holds pale tan dead leaves through much of the winter.

The boundary line itself — bright mown turf meeting near-black holly or cedar — is the best single compositional element on any club property: a clean division a subject can be placed on.

The second two, and the year

The third way out is scale rather than distance, and it is the answer to the uniformity problem.

Mown turf is one colour, the mowing pattern is consistent, the tree lines are similar all round, and the features repeat — which means five wide fairway frames are the same picture five times, and a set made by walking further rather than by working differently looks monotonous even when each frame is competent.

From one position: a close frame at conversational range; a margin portrait with dark evergreen as the whole background; a boundary-line frame; a low-camera frame that puts the subjects against sky; and one wide landscape frame. Five different photographs from one spot, where five wide frames from five positions are one photograph five times.

That also answers the texture problem indirectly. There is very little rough material anywhere on a club — no weathered timber, no rock at close range, no untidy edges — which means the interest has to come from light, from the people and from composition, and precision matters more here than at a textured venue.

A frame a degree off level against a horizon of mown turf reads as a mistake immediately, where the same error disappears entirely in a forest. There is no fix beyond care, and care is the fix.

The fourth way out is the season, and at a club it removes the green problem outright rather than working around it.

From mid-November to April the hardwoods are bare and the turf is dormant, which replaces the summer green with brown grass, grey trunks, pale tan beech leaves and near-black holly and cedar — a landscape of neutrals that treats skin and white fabric far better than green does.

And the December noon sun at around twenty-seven degrees means the whole short day rakes rather than floods, which is exactly what mown turf wants: a low sun rakes across level ground rather than falling onto it, which puts texture into a surface that is flat at noon and turns the mowing pattern into long graphic lines. There is no bad hour in a Delaware winter day.

Snow, when it lies, transforms the course completely: the turf becomes a clean white plane, the evergreen margins go near-black, every golf feature is buried, and what remains is a simple winter landscape with the widest brightness range the property ever has. Snow is the best natural fill available, lifting shadows to within a stop and fooling a meter by about two stops, so open up deliberately.

Autumn is the other strong window and in northern Delaware it is late: the second half of October into early November, with tulip poplar clear yellow, sugar maple orange and scarlet, sweetgum purple-red, beech bronze and oak russet. On a course that colour arrives exactly where it is most useful — in the treelines that form every background — and a boundary-line frame with a subject on the edge of green turf against a wall of warm colour is the strongest thing this venue produces all year.

Spring in northern Delaware is early and good, and unusually so for this guide. Leaf-out runs through April, and before the canopy closes the flowering understorey is lit directly rather than filtered: dogwood white, redbud magenta on bare wood, and cherry. The Piedmont fringe has more flowering understorey than the coastal plain.

The costs are the mid-Atlantic severe-weather season, with thunderstorms a real afternoon possibility from April into summer — which on open turf with no cover makes a named indoor alternative a requirement rather than a courtesy — and ticks, which are a genuine consideration in northern Delaware woodland and rough from spring through autumn.

Summer is the weakest season: everything green, the middle of the day unusable, and dew points in the low twenties Celsius putting haze in the air. Its compensation is fifteen hours of daylight and a thirty-minute twilight, which is an unhurried schedule.

Indoors, a clubhouse is likely to be either timber or pale and modern. Timber absorbs, which means the ambient sits a stop or two below what the eye estimates and the background falls away for free — meter on skin and let the room go dark. Pale and modern inverts the problem to separation: find something dark, use the glazing at forty-five degrees, or add a source a stop over ambient so the subject has a shadow side.

• Camera below subjects on a rise: the cleanest background, and the green disappears
• Arrange groups up the slope with the camera downhill — every face visible, free
• Holly and redcedar margins give three or four stops of near-black at any hour
• Work five scales from one position rather than one scale from five positions
• Mid-November to April removes the green problem outright

The northern Delaware year

Four real seasons on the Piedmont fringe, and the calendar here runs ahead of the state’s coast and behind its mountains — Delaware has none, but the comparison is useful.

Winter is the best light of the year and the best background of the year, which is an unusual combination. The December noon sun at around twenty-seven degrees never rises high enough to flatten anything, so the whole short nine-hour-twenty day rakes; the hardwoods are bare so the woodland is open and light reaches the ground everywhere; and the green is gone.

Beech is the winter surprise and it is worth naming again: it holds pale tan dead leaves on the tree through much of the winter, which means a beech stand in February is a warm-toned space rather than a bare grey one, and a subject in front of one has a background with colour in it when nothing else does.

Holly and redcedar stay near-black, which in a landscape of browns and greys makes them the one solid dark mass rather than one dark thing among many — and that makes them more useful in winter, not less.

Snow is variable in northern Delaware and rarely deep, and when it lies it is the best natural fill available. Freezing rain is the more characteristic mid-Atlantic winter event, and an ice-glazed hardwood against a grey sky is remarkable and entirely unplannable.

Spring is early here and it is genuinely fine. March brings the first bulbs and the earliest flowering trees; April brings dogwood, redbud and cherry, all lit directly before the canopy closes; and the turf greens through late April.

That two-to-three-week window before leaf-out completes is the best fortnight of the year in Piedmont woodland, because a flowering understorey in full light is a condition that does not recur.

The costs are the severe-weather season, which builds from April, and a ground that is wet on rocky Piedmont soils in early spring.

Summer is the weakest season and the busiest. Everything is green, the middle of the day at seventy-three and a half degrees of elevation is the hardest light of the year on open turf, and dew points in the low twenties Celsius put haze in the air — which on a course, where the subjects are close and the backgrounds are the treeline, costs less than it would at a venue with a view.

Days run to fifteen hours at the solstice with about thirty minutes of civil twilight, which gives a generous unhurried evening. And low sun across mown turf at the end of a summer day is transformative in a way it is not at noon: it rakes the surface, throws long shadows, and turns flat green to gold.

Autumn is the second strong season and it is late. Northern Delaware turns in the second half of October into early November — later than the northern states and earlier than the Delaware coast, which the sea delays by a further two weeks.

The Piedmont palette is rich and varied: tulip poplar clear yellow, sugar maple orange and scarlet, sweetgum purple-red, beech bronze, oak russet, dogwood deep red. Against near-black holly and cedar, that warm palette is the best background combination this venue offers, and because oak and beech colour and drop slowly the window is a genuine three weeks rather than two.

Late November strips it to structure — bare hardwood, tan beech, near-black evergreen, brown turf, grey Piedmont rock and a very low sun all day — and the course is empty. It photographs austerely and extremely well.

More frames from Newark Country Club

Newark Country Club wedding photography: common questions

What does the relief give me?

Two completely different backgrounds from one spot. From below, the subjects stand against clean sky with everything else out of frame; from above, the course fills the space behind.

How do I photograph a group?

Arrange them up the slope with the camera downhill — every face is visible without anyone standing on anything.

Which margins give a dark background?

American holly and eastern redcedar. Both are evergreen, dense and very dark, and at three stops down they read near-black rather than green.

How do I avoid a monotonous set?

Work five scales from one position rather than one scale from five positions: close, margin, boundary line, low camera against sky, and one wide frame.

Which season removes the green problem?

Mid-November to April. Bare hardwood, tan beech leaves, near-black holly and dormant turf give a landscape of neutrals instead.

When is the club at its best?

The second half of October into early November for warm treelines behind green turf — and any clear winter afternoon, when a low sun rakes the turf all day.

More Delaware venue guides

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

• The Peninsula on the Indian River Bay, Millsboro: Field Notes, Problem and Solution
• South Coastal Library, Bethany Beach: The One Decision That Governs Everything
• The Wharf at Lewes: How the Light Moves on a Tidal Canal

All Delaware →

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