Puglia weddings, unposed.
Puglia is the easiest place in Italy to photograph badly. The white stone, the olive trees, the blue at the end of every street: it all looks like a postcard before you have done anything, and a postcard is the one thing a wedding should not look like.
I photograph what is actually happening: the argument about the chairs, the aunt who arrives an hour early, the ten minutes after the ceremony when nobody knows where to stand. The light here is extraordinary. It works better when it is falling on something true.
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[ 01 ] Masserie
Fortified farms turned into houses. Long tables, courtyards, and walls that hold the heat until midnight.
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[ 02 ] Ostuni & the white towns
Lime-washed streets that swallow contrast at noon and give everything back at six.
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[ 03 ] Monopoli & Polignano
The Adriatic at the end of the alley. Where Flavio and Bea got married.
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[ 04 ] Valle d’Itria
Trulli, dry-stone walls, and the drive between them that always takes longer than the plan says.
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[ 05 ] Salento & Lecce
Baroque stone the colour of butter, and parties that genuinely do not stop.
FLAVIO + BEA
Monopoli, Apulia
The full set is published in the order it happened, not a selection of the prettiest ten. It is the only honest way to judge a wedding photographer.
I am not directing you.
I arrive early and stay late. Most of what matters at a wedding happens in the gaps: while you are getting ready, while the guests are still arriving, after dinner when the formal part is over and people become themselves again.
In Puglia that last part runs long. Pizzica starts and does not stop, and the best photographs of the day are usually made after the point where other photographers have packed up.
You will not be asked to repeat anything for the camera. If you want a picture of the two of you somewhere beautiful, we will take fifteen minutes and do it properly, once.
- How early should we book a photographer in Puglia?
- For May to September, a year out is normal and eighteen months is not unusual. The masserie go first and everyone books around them. For any other month there is more room.
- Do you know the venues already?
- Some. Where I do not, I arrive the day before and walk the place at the hour you will be using it. Knowing where the light falls at seven in the evening matters more than having been there before.
- Do you travel for weddings?
- Yes. Anywhere in Italy and anywhere else. Travel and accommodation are quoted with the rest, so nothing appears on the invoice that was not agreed first.
- Will it be you photographing, or someone from a team?
- Me. On weddings I work alongside Giovanni Cocco, and the two of us are the two who turn up. You will never meet a photographer you have not spoken to.
- How long until we see the photographs?
- Everything is delivered within two months of the wedding, in a private online gallery you can download from home.
- Can we print wherever we like?
- Yes. The files are yours. You do not have to come through me to print, and I will not charge you for the privilege.
- Will you pose us?
- No. No details lined up like a catalogue, no walking towards the camera holding hands, no frame that could belong to anybody else. I photograph the day as it goes.
Getting married in Puglia?
Tell me the date, the place, and anything you already know. I answer personally, and I will tell you straight if I am not the right photographer for what you have in mind.