Photographing Florence: A Photographer's Guide to the City

First light at the Duomo

In June the sun is up around 5:35 and the square works from six, with the delivery vans still unloading; in December sunrise is nearer 7:40 and you can arrive with it. Either way you get forty minutes of nearly empty piazza, then the sweepers, then the first tour groups from nine. By half past nine the timed-entry line for the dome climb runs along the north flank.

Do not shoot from the middle of the square: the building is too big and too close, and your subject ends up thumbnail-sized against marble. The lanes running into it are better — they put the dome at a distance and a dark frame around it.

• Via dello Studio, looking north: the dome and the flank of the cathedral at the end of a narrow, shadowed lane. The most reliable frame in the centre.
• Via dei Servi, looking south: the same idea from the other side, with room to back up.
• Piazza San Giovanni, on the north side of the Baptistery: Ghiberti's bronze doors behind your subject, the crowd behind you.

The Arno, and the truth about Ponte Vecchio

Ponte Vecchio is a shopping street with a river under it, not a viewpoint, and standing on it is the commonest mistake visiting photographers make. From ten in the morning until well after dark it moves shoulder to shoulder past the jewellers' shutters, and the terrace by the Cellini bust is a scrum. Put the bridge in the frame, not under your feet.

• Ponte Santa Trinita, looking upstream. The classic, and for a reason: at sunset the low sun comes from behind you, straight down the river, and lights the western face of Ponte Vecchio. Stand at the downstream parapet, out of the walkway.
• Ponte alle Grazie, looking back the other way. Same bridge, opposite treatment: the sun drops behind it, so you get a hard silhouette and a burning river.
• Lungarno Torrigiani, the south-bank quay between those two bridges. Low, quiet, and because this stretch of river is held between two weirs it is often mirror-flat at dawn.
• The arcade of Lungarno degli Archibusieri, on the north bank under the Vasari Corridor: deep shade, repeating arches, a strip of river light at the end. The midday fallback.

A bridge is a thoroughfare, not a studio: ninety seconds before somebody needs past. Work handheld and take your gap.

Piazzale Michelangelo, and what sits just above it

From Ponte alle Grazie, cross the river and climb the Rampe del Poggi, the switchback ramps of fountains and grottoes above Piazza Poggi: fifteen to twenty minutes on foot, or buses 12 and 13 in the wrong shoes.

Be honest about the top: a car park with a view, a bronze copy of David, coaches, a hundred phones along the balustrade. The panorama is one of the great ones in Europe and, at eight on a July evening, close to unworkable for portraits. Stop short of it.

• Halfway up the Rampe. Same river, same skyline, stone and water in the foreground, nobody on the terraces.
• Giardino delle Rose, through a gate off the ramps. Free, terraced, olive trees, Folon bronzes, roses at their best in May, the dome clean over the wall.
• San Miniato al Monte, five minutes higher: older, quieter, the Porte Sante cemetery behind it, an inlaid green-and-white facade that takes the last light head-on. The church shuts in the evening; the terrace does not.

From up here you face north-west, so in summer the sun sets down the valley to your left and the Duomo, Palazzo Vecchio and Santa Croce take it on their western faces. Turn your subjects toward that light instead of squaring them to the skyline, and keep the dome off-centre; dead between two heads it reads like a fridge magnet. Then wait: the crowd thins ten minutes after the sun goes, and the twenty-five that follow beat the sunset itself.

Boboli and Bardini: green, and closing time

Both gardens keep museum hours, not photographers' hours: in high summer the gates shut around half past seven, with sunset still an hour and a half off; in winter, around half past four, roughly when the sun goes anyway. Last admission is an hour earlier, and Boboli closes a couple of days a month.

It sounds like a limitation and is a gift: gardens solve midday, exactly when the streets are worst.

Boboli is large, uphill and gravel throughout: the Viottolone cypress avenue, the amphitheatre behind Palazzo Pitti, the Kaffeehaus terrace. Warn anyone in heels: the gravel is coarse and the climb is real.

Bardini is smaller, steeper and, for photographs, better: a wisteria tunnel that flowers for about three weeks in mid-April and is worth dating a trip around, a baroque staircase, a belvedere loggia where the dome floats over the rooftops, and a fraction of the people.

Both are ticketed, and both have rules on commercial shoots, tripods and lighting. Check before promising anything beyond a camera on a strap.

The Oltrarno at noon

When the sun is high and the centre is a white glare, cross the river. The lanes south of the Arno are narrow enough to hold shade while one wall bounces warm light across them: Via Toscanella, Sdrucciolo de' Pitti, Borgo San Frediano, Piazza della Passera, Santo Spirito with its bare facade.

This is still a working quarter — gilders, frame makers, restorers, cobblers — with doors open to the street all morning. Ask before photographing into a workshop; the ones who say no are usually halfway through laying gold leaf.

Planning the hours

What actually goes wrong

• Scaffolding. Something is always under restoration; check the facade before building a shot list around it.
• Saturdays at Palazzo Vecchio. Civil weddings run through the day: the courtyard is busy and at times closed.
• August. Hot, hazy, flat white light by nine. Work the edges of the day, or move the month.
• Rain. Pietraforte darkens, the pavement turns to a mirror, the arcades earn their keep. Not a cancellation, as long as the umbrellas are plain.
• Cars. The centre is a restricted traffic zone; plan on walking between locations.

How long you actually need

Sessions are priced all-in, client side: EUR 279 for one hour, EUR 465 for two, EUR 649 for three. Florence is one of the few places where a single hour is a serious choice rather than a compromise: sixty minutes between the Duomo and Ponte Santa Trinita produce three distinct looks.

Two hours is the sensible default for a couples session or an engagement shoot, because it buys the climb: an hour in the centre, then the ramps for last light and the blue hour. Three hours if you want the gardens too.

If you have a second day

Siena is an hour and a quarter south by car and a different material: brick instead of stone, one enormous sloping square, a striped cathedral front that takes late light head-on. Another forty-five minutes and you are in the Val d'Orcia, where the cypress-lined roads live. Neither is an appendix to a Florence hour; both deserve their own morning, in position before the coaches.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the best place to photograph the Ponte Vecchio?

Not on it – from ten in the morning until well after dark it moves shoulder to shoulder past the jewellers' shutters. Stand on Ponte Santa Trinita looking upstream, where at sunset the low sun comes from behind you and lights the western face of the bridge, or on Ponte alle Grazie for a hard silhouette over a burning river. Lungarno Torrigiani on the south bank is often mirror-flat at dawn.

What time should you be at the Duomo in Florence for empty photos?

In June the sun is up around 5:35 and the square works from six; in December sunrise is nearer 7:40 and you can arrive with it. Either way you get forty minutes of nearly empty piazza before the sweepers and the first tour groups from nine. Shoot from the lanes running into it – Via dello Studio looking north is the most reliable frame – rather than from the middle of the square.

When is the best moment at Piazzale Michelangelo?

Ten minutes after the sun goes the crowd thins, and the twenty-five minutes that follow beat the sunset itself. Stop short of the top, which at eight on a July evening is close to unworkable for portraits: halfway up the Rampe del Poggi, the free Giardino delle Rose, or San Miniato al Monte five minutes higher, whose facade takes the last light head-on.