The Fox Theatre, Detroit: One Frame and How It Is Made

A 1920s picture palace lobby is the most decorated room a wedding can be photographed in. One frame uses it.

Inside the Fox, the grand lobby continues to impress with lavish decor and beautifully detailed architecture, as its own description has it.

That sentence names the frame. A 1920s picture palace lobby is the single most decorated interior a wedding is likely to be photographed in, and in Detroit specifically the surviving theatre stock is exceptional, because the city was wealthy when these buildings went up and it spent accordingly. A lobby of that era was public theatre in its own right — a tall volume, a monumental stair, ornament on every plane, and a scale intended to impress people who had paid to see a film.

So the frame is the lobby, taken deliberately rather than in passing: a wide, levelled, symmetrical view with the couple small in the depth, the stair rising in the frame, and the ornament reading as ornament rather than as a dark field. It is the picture the building exists to give and it is the one most often taken badly, because the thing that makes it work is not the composition but the lighting.

This is written as that frame and the three things it needs. We have not photographed a wedding at the Fox; 1920s picture palaces behave consistently. What the house lighting can be set to and who operates it, whether the lights can be brought up plain for a few minutes, and whether the stage rig is available are the questions for their team.

The Fox Theatre at a glance

Where	Downtown Detroit, Michigan
Character	A 1920s picture palace with a lavish grand lobby and a large auditorium
The frame	The lobby, wide and levelled, with the couple small in the depth
It needs	Grazing light, precision, and the lights brought up plain
Ask first	Lighting control and operator, plain house lights, stage rig

The frame, and the three things it needs

The first requirement is grazing light, and it is the whole difference between a frame that shows the room and one that does not. Ornament of this period is dense and three-dimensional — mouldings, brackets, columns, coffers, carved and cast relief — and it reads only when light crosses it at an angle and casts a small shadow beside every element. Under the flat, low, downward wash that house lighting provides, that ornament flattens into a dark field and photographs as far less than it is.

One source placed to one side of a wall or a stair, close to parallel with the surface rather than facing it, brings all of it back. It is a one-light problem rather than a big-kit one, and it is worth setting up deliberately for two or three frames rather than carried through an evening.

The second requirement is the plain house lights, and it is the most valuable request in the building and the least often made. Asking whether the lights can be brought up plain — white, undimmed, no colour — for a few minutes before guests arrive gives the only opportunity to photograph the lobby as a room rather than as a dim atmospheric volume: the architecture legible, the scale readable, the stair and the ceiling in their own right. It costs a conversation rather than equipment.

The third requirement is precision. A lobby of this kind is axial and symmetrical, and the eye detects a two-degree error against strong geometry instantly while forgiving a large one in an asymmetrical composition entirely — so the near-miss is the only failure available. Level with the electronic level, and either centre exactly on the axis or step clearly off it. This is one of the few frames worth a tripod and two minutes of care.

The couple belongs in the depth rather than at the front. Placed two-thirds of the way into the volume they become the focal point of the architecture and read as two people in a room built to overwhelm, which is the emotional content of the picture. Close to the camera they block the space and it becomes a portrait with decoration behind it.

A monumental stair is almost certainly part of it, and it does double duty: it gives the axial frame its vertical interest, and it solves the group problem that theatres otherwise handle badly. Steps make rows automatically, so thirty people arrange themselves with everybody visible — which no auditorium aisle or flat floor will do.

One further caution: a lobby of this era is likely to be richly coloured as well as richly ornamented, with gilding, painted plaster and patterned carpet all bouncing their own colour onto nearby skin. Because that cast is localised, global white balance cannot separate it — so let one gelled source be the authority on faces and let the room be as coloured as it is.

The auditorium, and the rest of the building

The auditorium is a separate proposition and it gives a small number of strong frames rather than a parallel set. Knowing which in advance is what makes twenty minutes there worthwhile.

The first is the long view down the house, or from the stage towards it: rows of seating receding into darkness are pure repetition and the frame reads instantly as a theatre. It is symmetrical, so it needs the same precision as the lobby.

The second is a couple in a single pool of light on an otherwise dark stage before an empty house — one of the strongest frames any venue type can produce, needing a board operator rather than equipment, which is why the stage rig belongs in the contract. Coloured washes are a separate matter: a saturated wash renders skin unrecoverably in its own colour, so commit to shape and silhouette or add a neutral source on the faces and let the wash light the set behind.

The third is the ornament grazed — a proscenium arch or a box front lit from one side reads as the elaborate object it is, where under the house wash it reads as a brown field.

Beyond those, an atmospheric auditorium resists for reasons worth naming once. Deep-toned surfaces absorb rather than bounce, so the ambient is far below what the fitting count suggests. The volume is beyond the reach of any flash, so bounce is unavailable and distance has to be assumed in every power decision. And house lighting is low, warm and overhead, which darkens eyes while forcing a high ISO.

One warm-gelled source at face height, off the camera axis, exposed so the room still reads as the dim ornate space it is, covers everything else — the aim being a catchlight and a shoulder edge rather than an evenly lit theatre. And the steep fall-off in a large dark room is free separation, which should be exploited rather than filled in.

A balcony, where one is accessible, is the position most often missed: from its front the camera is above the floor, the whole volume reads, and the proscenium sits at eye level rather than above it. It takes two minutes of walking and it is the frame that shows what the building is.

• Graze the ornament from close to parallel; facing it gives a dark field
• Ask for the house lights up plain for five minutes before guests arrive
• Level and centre the lobby frame; the near-miss is the only failure
• Put the couple two-thirds into the depth, and the group on the stair
• Go up to the balcony once — two minutes, and nobody does it

The marquee, the street, and Detroit's year

A theatre of this era has one exterior frame nothing else offers and it is time-critical. A lit marquee against a sky that still holds colour exists only in the twenty to thirty minutes after sunset: before that the sign is invisible against a bright sky, and after it the sky is black and the frame becomes a lit sign floating in nothing. Take the sunset time, add fifteen minutes, be standing in the street with the couple already there, and bracket a sequence as the sky falls.

It also needs confirming that the marquee will be lit, which outside performance hours is a request rather than a given — and it is the single question that determines whether this frame exists at all.

Detroit gives that frame an advantage almost no other American city does: there is space to stand back. The downtown has a great deal of open ground and surface parking, which means a whole building can be photographed from across the street in a way it cannot be in a denser city. A 1920s theatre facade with its marquee, photographed entire rather than in fragments, is a Detroit possibility rather than a general one — and it is worth using deliberately.

That openness also means low sun reaches street level from further away than in a canyon city, so the last ninety minutes give raking light on masonry across a wider area. Brick and stone show their texture only when light runs along them, so a short walk to find which side is being raked is worth more than any accessory. And Detroit’s plan overlays radiating boulevards on a grid, which means some streets run diagonally and take low sun at angles the grid streets do not — worth a look at a map before the day.

Detroit’s seasons are four real ones. Summer is warm and humid with afternoon thunderstorms a real possibility — for a sealed theatre that is entirely irrelevant indoors, and the only casualty is the marquee frame, which needs a sky, so on an unsettled evening it is worth taking early and taking twice.

Winter is cold and snowy, with short days and sunset in the middle of the afternoon in December, which moves the marquee window early. Snow is the compensation and it is the best natural fill there is, lifting exactly the shadows a low sun carves while fooling a meter by about two stops — and snow falling through the light of a lit marquee is one of the best frames a theatre district can give.

Autumn gives the clearest air and the best raking light of the year on masonry, which is the season the exterior is at its best. And a heated lobby with cold street air fogs a lens in both directions, so let a body reach ambient before the marquee window rather than carrying it out cold.

More frames from The Fox Theatre

The Fox Theatre wedding photography: common questions

What is the defining frame?

The grand lobby, taken deliberately: wide, levelled and symmetrical, with the couple small in the depth and the ornament reading as ornament rather than as a dark field.

Why does the ornament photograph as nothing?

Because it is three-dimensional and the house wash is flat, low and downward — so there are no shadows beside the relief and therefore no visible depth.

What is the most valuable request?

That the house lights be brought up plain — white, undimmed, no colour — for a few minutes before guests arrive. It is the only chance to photograph the lobby as a room.

Where should the couple stand?

Two-thirds of the way into the depth, so they become the focal point of the architecture. Close to the camera they block the space and it becomes a portrait with decoration behind.

When can the marquee be photographed?

Twenty to thirty minutes after sunset, and only then. Before it the sign is invisible against a bright sky; after it the sky is black and the frame is a sign in a void.

What does Detroit add to the exterior frame?

Room to stand back. Open ground and surface parking downtown mean a whole building can be photographed from across the street in a way a denser city does not allow.

More Detroit, MI venue guides

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

• The Gem Theatre, Detroit: The One Decision That Governs Everything
• The Masonic Temple, Detroit: One Frame and How It Is Made
• The Motown Museum, Detroit: One Frame and How It Is Made

All Detroit, MI Wedding Venues →

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