Amalfi Coast
Elopements

Why elope in Amalfi Coast

“Vertical drama, turquoise water 300 metres below, and light that photographers come from everywhere to find.”

The Amalfi Coast is the most dramatically vertical wedding location I photograph in Italy, and that verticality is everything. The cliffside villages — Ravello high above the sea, Positano cascading down to the water, Praiano caught between the two — stack houses, churches, and terraced lemon groves at angles that create visual depth in every direction you point a camera. Ravello's Villa Cimbrone and Villa Rufolo have hosted events for more than a century; their terraced gardens overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea are among the most photographed wedding locations in the world, and justifiably. The light from the sea bouncing back up the cliffs in late afternoon adds a luminous quality to everything it touches.

The light

The Amalfi Coast's southern Italian October light is horizontal and warm for most of the afternoon, and the cliff faces act as enormous warm reflectors that fill shadows naturally. The combination of sea bounce-light from below and direct sun from above creates a double-lit environment that is extraordinary for portraiture with almost no manipulation required.