Wedding photographer in Ablis

Ablis is one of six Yvelines communes lying in the Beauce plain, and you see it the moment you arrive: the relief disappears, the field of view opens, and the sky takes two thirds of the frame. For a photographer it is unlike anywhere else in the department, the opposite of the Rambouillet woods thirteen kilometres north. The Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church, 11th and 17th century, is a listed monument; the former Saint-Épain-Saint-Blaise abbey and the old hospice complete a stone-dense village centre. I travel from the Oise across the whole Paris region; travel is quoted up front.

The Beauce gives something no château park can: an unobstructed horizon. At golden hour the sun drops to ground level and lights faces head-on, with no trees to cut it. It is the only setting where you can shoot a couple in full backlight late in the day and still keep a readable sky behind them.

The downside is real and worth saying: with no obstacle there is no shade. On a June afternoon the light falls vertically and there is no natural shelter within several hundred metres. So I plan portraits early or after 6pm, and keep the village centre for the harsh hours.

The Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church mixes the 11th and 17th centuries. Buildings of that period are dark and narrow: I work in available light, wide open, without flash. Scouting beforehand is mostly about knowing where the light comes from and where to stand so the ceremony never notices me.

Wind is a constant on the plateau, more than anywhere else in the Paris region. Veils, hair and tablecloths all pay for it, and a flying dress often makes the best photograph of the day — provided you anticipate it rather than endure it. I always warn brides beforehand.

Ablis is a crossroads: junction 1 of the A11, Auneau station 7 km away, Rambouillet and Dourdan 15. Many couples have their roots here and hold the reception elsewhere, in the southern Yvelines or in the Eure-et-Loir. I build the schedule around real travel on the day, not an estimate.

The Beauce changes colour completely over the summer, and that gets decided when you set the date. In late June and early July the wheat is high and golden, and a couple standing in it gives the image everyone has in mind. After the harvest the fields are cut and straw-coloured: bare, more graphic, beautiful in another way, but not remotely the same photograph. I always tell couples hesitating between two Saturdays.

Ablis belongs to the Beauce fringe of the Yvelines, a geographic exception in a department of forests and valleys. The Saint-Pierre-Saint-Paul church, whose oldest parts date to the 11th century, is a listed monument; the village also keeps remains of a 12th-to-16th-century abbey and an old hospice. The economy has stayed cereal-based, which is why the landscape has barely changed.