Photographers in Gordes

Gordes is really two shoots. The first is the postcard: the panoramic lay-by on the road in from Cavaillon, where the whole village stacks up its cliff in one frame. It faces roughly west, so morning light comes from behind the village — come in the last two hours before sunset instead, when the sun rakes the dry-stone facades and turns them amber; that lay-by at golden hour is also one of Provence's easiest great proposal spots. The second shoot is inside: the calades — steep cobbled lanes — the castle square and the fountains, best before ten, when the day-trip coaches arrive and parking becomes a contact sport. Five minutes down a narrow valley road sits the Abbaye de Sénanque, its lavender rows framing the Romanesque church roughly from late June to mid-July; it is a working monastery, so shoot from the marked areas, keep voices down and leave the drone at home. Combine village golden hour with a Sénanque morning and the day is complete.