Category : Portsmouth, NH

Portsmouth has two characteristics that matter more to a photographer than any individual venue. The first is that the historic centre is low-rise, which sounds trivial and is not: in a city of tall buildings the streets lose the sun by mid-afternoon and street-level golden hour never happens, whereas here low evening sun reaches the ground and runs the full length of a street, lighting one side and shading the other. Finding which streets run roughly east-west is ten minutes of preparation that pays for itself.

The second is that its narrow brick and clapboard lanes behave like very large soft boxes — light arrives from the strip of sky above and bounces between facing elevations, which gives soft even light and, crucially, replaces a blown sky in the background with a mid-toned building.

The third thing worth knowing is tidal. The Piscataqua has a substantial range, so a waterfront frame at high water gives a full channel with floating boats and reflections, while the same position at low water gives exposed mudflats, weedy pilings and hulls sitting on the bottom. Both are usable and only one is what most couples picture — and tide times are published, so checking them for a date takes two minutes that no venue brochure will do for you.

The guides below are venue by venue, because the useful information is specific: why painted clapboard clips with nothing underneath it, why a request to the lighting desk three weeks early makes the best frame in a theatre, and why a low ceiling in a small brick loft is an advantage rather than a limitation.