Photo Locations

Almost every Austrian location is a question of light. This one is a question of a gate: the season, the toll and the two hours after opening that decide an alpine elopement shoot.

The photograph that made St. Wolfgang famous is taken from the water. Here is how to plan a family session around the lakefront, the ferries, the Schafberg railway and the Advent lantern.

Graz fits a whole photo day into one loop: a clock tower on a wooded rock, a field of red roofs, Renaissance arcades and a steel island in the river. Here is which hour belongs to which frame.

A turquoise lake at 750 metres, a summit at 1,965 and a glacier at 3,000 — how to plan a family photoshoot in Zell am See and Kaprun around cable cars, cloud and cold.

How to photograph the Wachau: Dürnstein's cobalt tower before the cruise boats arrive, the dry-stone terraces above Weißenkirchen and Spitz in the last light, and what each month does to the valley.

How to photograph Innsbruck properly: the Golden Roof at eight, the coloured houses on the Inn in the last light, and the Nordkette terrace at 1,905 metres, twenty minutes from the centre.

Salzburg is twenty-five minutes across and the fortress lands in half your frames. What decides a session here is the calendar: festival stages in summer, market huts in winter, and an empty parterre at seven.

Hallstatt's famous frame is about four metres wide and has a queue from ten until four. Here is where to stand, when to arrive, what the new funicular changed and how winter rewrites the whole day.

Vienna's best frames are free and empty before nine, and unusable by eleven. Here is where to stand at Schönbrunn, the Belvedere, the Ring and the vineyards, hour by hour and U-Bahn by U-Bahn.

Four locations, four directions of light: Maria Wörth from the water, Velden at sunrise, the Pörtschach peninsula and the Pyramidenkogel. How to plan a Wörthersee shoot around the hour.

Kitzbühel packs a painted medieval street, two famous mountains and a mirroring moor lake into a very small radius. Where to stand, when the light works, and the one January week to avoid.

The Gosausee holds the whole Dachstein upside down — but only until the valley wind gets up. Where to stand at the north end, when the light arrives, and what the circuit and the upper valley add.