Athens is a city with a light that changes register by the hour. In the morning it is sharp and forensic. By late afternoon, coming across the Acropolis from Filopappou, it becomes something else, amber and low, cutting across old stone in a way that no other European city produces.

Sandra and Romain came from Hong Kong by way of France, carrying their plans to travel the world and a destination that marked one of two stops. Athens was the first.

We started in Plaka, in the old neoclassical house where they were staying, a session that stayed close, intimate, inside the character of the building before the city opened up around us. From there, along the streets below the Odeon of Herodes Atticus, where Sandra stopped and pointed at the sky. It was the bluest blue, she said. Later in the day the light shifted to orange, and by Filopappou the Parthenon was behind them and the city was below. We ended the evening at dinner under the open sky with the Acropolis directly in front of us, and made plans for Mykonos.

Athens has its own logic and its own sequence. You can find amazing location gems avoiding the touristic areas and the summer heat. For this session we used the Plaka house for the interior session, the neoclassical architecture, the quality of light inside old Athenian rooms, the wooden stair, the old stained glass, and a beauty session with a make-up artist we work with regularly. Areopagus and Filopappou gave us the Acropolis from the southwest, which is the angle that earns the view. The day moved from interior to hill to dinner, following the light rather than a plan.

Sandra and Romain were from the other side of the world and had never been to Athens. That first encounter with the city, the sky, the light on the stone, it was visible in everything they did in front of the camera.

For our work in Athens visit our dedicated page Wedding photographer Athens. The Mykonos session from this same trip is available at Elopement photos in Mykonos. A film from this commission is at Elopement Film Mykonos.