Innsbruck Photoshoot Guide: Old Town Colours, Nordkette Light and the Bergisel

The old town at eight: the Golden Roof and Maria-Theresien-Straße

The Goldenes Dachl is a balcony rather than a building — an oriel of 2,657 gilded copper tiles added around 1500 so that Maximilian I could watch the square below. It closes the end of Herzog-Friedrich-Straße, a crooked lane of arcaded houses in cream, ochre and pale green, and because the lane is narrow the roof only reads from twenty or thirty paces back, with the painted fronts funnelling in on it. Walk right up and you lose the lane. The lane stays in shadow almost all day while the gilding still carries, which makes it one of the few city frames that survives midday.

Five minutes south, Maria-Theresien-Straße opens into one of the widest old-town streets in Austria, with St Anne's column of 1706 in the middle and the triumphal arch closing the southern end. Turn your back on the arch and look north: baroque fronts on both sides, and the grey wall of the Nordkette rising straight out of the roofline. It beats the postcard: the street is wide enough to put people in the foreground without losing the mountain. More on light and standing positions at the Golden Roof and Maria-Theresien-Straße.

From mid-November the Christkindlmarkt fills the lane under the Golden Roof with stalls and lights, and the larger market on Maria-Theresien-Straße usually runs into early January — dates move every year, so check them. Stalls make a posed session in the lane impossible and a walking one excellent.

The coloured houses on the Inn at Mariahilf

The row along Mariahilfstraße and Innstraße is the frame the city sells itself with: tall narrow houses in pink, ochre, mint, cream and pale blue standing straight out of the water, with the rock of the Nordkette immediately behind them. You shoot it from the south bank, not from among the houses — the Marktplatz embankment and the Herzog-Siegmund-Ufer give the straight-on version, the Innbrücke and the footbridge upstream the angled ones with the river leading in.

The houses face roughly south and hold light most of the day, but the last two hours are the ones worth having: the sun rakes along the row, separates the colours, and for a few minutes after the valley has gone into shade the rock above turns pink. From June to August glacier melt makes the Inn high, fast and opaque milky green; in winter it drops and clears to a grey-green that actually reflects the row. Snow on the Nordkette behind the coloured fronts is usually there from November into April.

The Nordkette: the middle of town to 1,905 metres

The Hungerburgbahn starts beside the Congress in the old town, runs under the city and over the Inn on Zaha Hadid's glass stations, and sets you down at Hungerburg at about 860 metres. From there the Seegrubenbahn lifts you to the Seegrube at 1,905 metres, and a second car goes on to the Hafelekar at 2,256. Centre to summit is roughly twenty minutes. Seegrube is the station worth the ticket: the extra 350 metres to Hafelekar changes the picture less than the extra half hour costs you.

The Seegrube terrace is what people come for: the city directly beneath you, the Inn a pale line through it, the Stubai and Tux Alps filling the far side and the rock of the Nordkette at your back. The drop is severe enough that two people at the rail read as two figures against an entire valley. The terrace faces south, so it is lit all day; the good windows are early morning, before the valley haze builds, and the last two hours, when the ranges opposite turn warm and the city goes into shadow first. On autumn mornings cloud sits in the valley and leaves you above it.

It runs about ten degrees colder than the city and it is usually windy. The railway operates all year, but the timetable is seasonal and there are maintenance closures each spring and autumn — check the day's first and last cars, because missing the last one down means walking. In winter this is a ski area: packed snow, short clean light, the station shared with skiers. Standing positions are on the Nordkette cable car.

Bergisel: city, river and mountain in one frame

The Bergisel jump stands on a wooded hill about 250 metres above the city, where the Tyrolean militia fought in 1809. The present tower, finished in 2002 to Zaha Hadid's design, is a single concrete and steel curve with a lift inside and an open terrace at the head of the inrun. From there the jump falls away in one straight line to the outrun and the stadium, and beyond it Innsbruck fills the valley with the whole Nordkette behind — city, mountain and hard modern architecture in a single frame.

The terrace faces roughly north over the city, so it is even and shadowless most of the day; the morning and the last hour are the two windows worth taking, and winter gives the sharpest air of the year. The tower is ticketed, the hours shift with the season and there is a last admission; it also closes around competitions and training days, and the Four Hills round is held here in the first days of January, so check the day before. Tram 1 and the Stubaitalbahn stop at the foot of the hill, ten steep minutes below.

Half an hour by train: Seefeld and the Seekirchl

For an alpine frame with no city in it, the plateau above Innsbruck is easier to reach than the mountain behind it. Trains on the Mittenwaldbahn run to Seefeld in Tirol in roughly half an hour, about hourly — check the current timetable, but it fits inside a morning.

Seefeld sits at about 1,180 metres, and the picture is the Seekirchl: a white chapel with an onion dome, built in 1666, standing alone on open meadow at the western edge of the village with nothing built between it and the mountains. Walk a full circle before you start: from the north the Karwendel closes the view, from the south you get the plateau and the Wetterstein beyond. The facade faces roughly south-west and glows for the last hour of light.

From December the cross-country tracks are groomed right past the chapel and the same frame becomes white ground, blue shadow and the Hohe Munde behind; stay off the classic tracks and work from the trodden edge. Five minutes away the Wildsee is level and mirror-still until the plateau breeze starts mid-morning. More on Seefeld.

What the seasons actually do

Summer gives long evenings — light until nearly nine in June — but haze in the valley by midday, so go up early or late and use the lanes in between; late September and October bring the cleanest air of the warm months. From November the mountain carries snow while the city stays dry, which is Innsbruck's real trick: you photograph in a coat rather than in ski clothing and still have a white range behind you. The sun leaves the valley floor by about four in December, so a winter session is short and early.

Planning an Innsbruck photoshoot

The efficient plan is one low location and one high one inside the same booking. Sixty minutes covers the old town and the river if you start at eight — the Golden Roof, Maria-Theresien-Straße and the Inn are within a ten-minute walk of each other, and none of it needs a ticket. Two hours is the honest minimum as soon as a cable car is involved: the ride up, the walk away from the top station, the shooting and the ride down all have to fit the window, and the timetable rather than the light decides when it ends.

Dress for two climates in one session. What works at the river in a light coat is not enough on the Seegrube, so bring a second layer that looks deliberate on camera — a wool coat, a scarf with some weight — rather than a technical jacket pulled on at the top station.

A photographer who works the city knows which lane is still in shade at nine and whether the cable car is running at all that morning. You can browse Innsbruck photographers and book online, with express sessions from €279 for 60 minutes and €465 for 120, all-inclusive; there is more on the page for Innsbruck and on what a couples session covers.