Naples Grande Beach Resort, Naples: The Problem and Four Ways Out of It
A west-facing Gulf resort where the sunset is both the reason people come and the hardest lighting problem on the property.
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Venue Guides
We are writing a photographer’s field guide to every wedding venue we would happily work in, city by city. Each guide covers the light, the timing and the frames that work – and says plainly where we are drawing on craft rather than on having shot there.
The Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne: What It Suits and What It Does Not
An Atlantic-facing resort on a barrier island off Miami — which means the sun comes out of the water, not down into it.
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The Vinoy, St. Petersburg: One Frame and How It Is Made
A 1920s hotel on the downtown St. Petersburg waterfront, and one frame that needs the building's lights and the sky to sit a stop apart.
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The Don CeSar, St. Pete Beach: The One Decision That Governs Everything
A large pink building on a white Gulf beach. The colour is not a detail; in low sun it becomes the light itself.
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The Ringling, Sarasota: How the Light Moves Across the Estate
A bayfront estate on Sarasota Bay — a Venetian Gothic house, a colonnaded museum courtyard, and a west-facing shore that gives the sun to the water.
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Vizcaya Museum & Gardens, Miami: A Walk Through the Site
An Italianate villa set in formal gardens on Biscayne Bay, where the stonework is local reef rock and the shade is banyan.
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The Biltmore Hotel, Coral Gables: The Logic of a Pre-Air-Conditioning Building
A hotel built in 1926, before air conditioning, for a subtropical climate — which means it was designed around shade, and the shade is still the best thing in it.
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Grappone Conference Center, Concord: What It Suits and What It Does Not
A modern purpose-built event centre in Concord — reliable, weatherproof, and entirely dependent on what a photographer brings to it.
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Manchester Country Club, Bedford: What It Suits and What It Does Not
A country club in the Merrimack valley — maintained open ground with mature New England woodland at its edges, and nothing rough at close range.
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Owl’s Nest Resort, Thornton: Field Notes, Problem and Solution
A resort on a White Mountain valley floor, with ridges on both sides and the high peaks beyond them.
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