Belvedere Santa Lucia over Rione Monti

Alberobello has around fifteen hundred trulli, the dry-stone houses with conical corbelled roofs that exist nowhere else at this density. From street level you only ever see two or three at a time; from the Belvedere Santa Lucia, on the opposite side of the valley, the entire Rione Monti rises in front of you as a field of grey cones and whitewashed walls.

That is the frame that explains the place, and it is the one clients recognise. The terrace faces roughly west, so late afternoon light comes across the roofs and gives the stone cones their shape; at midday they flatten out and the whole hillside turns into grey noise. After sunset the district is lit and the cones separate again against a blue sky, which is the other strong version.

The belvedere is a short walk from the centre, public, free and level, with a low wall to work against. It is small and it fills at sunset in summer. Because it is a viewpoint, people in the frame will be small: shoot the couple at the wall with the roofs behind, then move down into Rione Monti for the close work, where the stepped lanes and whitewashed walls give portrait backgrounds two minutes away.