North Rhine-Westphalia
Düsseldorf is a city with two faces two hundred metres apart. The Rhine promenade is plane trees, steps down to the water and, on a summer evening, full of people; the Medienhafen behind it is Gehry, glass-clad slopes and after office hours effectively empty. One gives warm soft light and movement, the other hard edges and reflection — and because they are joined on foot, this is the rare session that gets two entirely different registers without anyone getting into a car. The old town between them is a harder subject than it looks: the lanes are narrow, after seven in the evening it is a drinking strip, and in the morning it is being delivered to. If you want it, go early on a Sunday. What Düsseldorf also has and almost nobody plans for is the Japanese quarter around Immermannstraße — the third-largest Japanese community in Europe, with signage, shops and a visual language that exists nowhere else in Germany.
May to September is promenade season, and the evenings are long enough for a session to start at half past seven. In winter the Medienhafen is the better subject: the facades are floodlit and blue hour begins at half past four. The exhibition calendar peaks in January, with boot, and again in spring — in those weeks hotels and suppliers are short. Carnival hits Düsseldorf as it does Cologne, just a shade less totally.
Here is where to shoot in Düsseldorf, with ideal times and permit notes.
Two kilometres of plane trees with steps down to the water, open to the west. This is the one place on the Rhine where the sun sets over the river instead of behind a building, and on a summer evening several thousand people are sitting on those steps from seven.
Three curved blocks, one of them in polished steel that reflects whatever stands in front of it. On a weekday this is office traffic; in the evening and at the weekend it is empty — and that is the difference between a portrait and a portrait with forty passers-by in it.
The oldest public park in Germany: mature trees, a pond, and a small rococo palace at the edge of it. Five minutes on foot from the Königsallee and still quiet — the default for family and maternity sessions when the brief is green.
Two hundred and forty metres with a light sculpture that tells the time, and the curved parliament building on the water in front of it. From the bank you get both plus the Rheinknie bridge in one frame — a subject that only works after sunset.
Two hundred metres of Japanese signage, bookshops and restaurants that come up in neon in the evening. There is nothing else like it in Germany, and it is the answer for any session that should look urban without looking like an old town.
These come under the Düsseldorf rate: a photographer travels out from the city at no extra charge, and the session is priced exactly as it would be in Düsseldorf itself.
Both, in that order. The promenade an hour before sunset, when the light comes warm off the water, then twelve minutes on foot to the Medienhafen for blue hour on the glass. It does not work the other way round: the harbour needs darkness and the promenade needs sun.
On a Sunday morning, yes; otherwise barely. The lanes are narrow and dark, there are delivery vans in them in the morning, and from early evening it is one continuous drinking strip with the crowd that implies. For couples who want old-town character, early Sunday is the window — before or after that, the Hofgarten or Kaiserswerth are better.
Yes, and it is emptier. The promenade is exposed, so it is draughty — but sunset in December falls at half past four, which for families with children is far more workable than nine in the evening in June. When the river is high the lower steps are closed; we check that the day before.