Saxony
The Canaletto view is a painting from 1748, and you can still stand on the exact spot it was painted from. From the Neustadt bank the Hofkirche, the Ständehaus, the Frauenkirche and the Brühl Terrace line up over the water. Because the front faces north it takes raking light from the left in the late afternoon in summer and nothing but diffuse light all day in winter — which means a December booking here looks more honest than a July one at midday. Dresden’s second subject is interiors, and they are tightly governed. The Zwinger, the Semperoper and the Residenzschloss belong to the state art collections or to the Free State, and commercial photography in them needs permission and carries a fee; the Zwinger courtyard does not, but the galleries and pavilions within it can, depending on the area. Anyone planning a wedding in Dresden settles that at the same time as the registry office rather than after it — and the registry office itself sits in a building where photography is allowed, which is not true everywhere.
September and October are the clearest months and give raking evening light across the old-town front. In May and June the Elbe meadows are green and wide enough for groups. High summer is hot and the front sits flat in the light at midday. From late November to Christmas the Striezelmarkt fills the Altmarkt — six weeks of an extra subject and, at the same time, the reason the centre is not quiet then. In January there is often fog on the Elbe, and that is the best version of the Canaletto view there is.
Here is where to shoot in Dresden, with ideal times and permit notes.
The meadow opposite the old town, from which the whole silhouette fits into one frame. It sits lower than the terrace across the water, so you get river in the foreground, and it is wide enough that a wedding party is in nobody’s way.
A baroque courtyard with the crown gate, the rampart pavilion and the nymph bath, and in the morning it is genuinely empty. The courtyard itself is freely accessible; the moment the work is commercial or moves into the galleries, the state collections’ rules apply.
The "balcony of Europe": five hundred metres of raised walk above the Elbe with a staircase down to the Schlossplatz. From here you see the Neustadt rather than the old town — the counterpart to the Canaletto view, and in the morning it is the side with the light on it.
Five designed courtyards, among them the "courtyard of the elements" with drainpipes that play when it rains. This is the counterweight to the baroque old town, and the best place in Dresden for a session that should not look historical.
A summer palace in chinoiserie style right on the Elbe, ten kilometres upstream and reachable by paddle steamer. The park is large, kept and markedly quieter than anything in the centre — the address for a wedding party that needs room.
These come under the Dresden rate: a photographer travels out from the city at no extra charge, and the session is priced exactly as it would be in Dresden itself.
From the Neustadt bank, in the late afternoon. The old-town front faces north, so it never takes direct midday sun; what it does take, in summer, is raking light from the left in the last two hours. From the Brühl Terrace you are photographing the other way — a subject in its own right, and one that works in the morning.
The courtyard is publicly accessible and private photography in it is unrestricted. Commercial work — and wedding reportage counts — needs permission from the Dresden state art collections and carries a fee; the galleries and individual pavilions have further conditions. We obtain it beforehand and invoice the fee separately.
Yes, for two reasons. First, the north-facing old-town front depends on diffuse light anyway, so it loses nothing in winter. Second, January often brings fog on the Elbe that lifts the silhouette clear of its background — the best version of that photograph, and not available in summer. The Striezelmarkt in December is a subject of its own and fills the centre for six weeks.