Photographers in Strasbourg

Strasbourg's photography is concentrated in two places a ten-minute walk apart. Petite France is the postcard: sixteenth-century half-timbered houses leaning over the Ill, best shot at seven or eight in the morning when the quays are empty and the water is flat enough to double the facades. From there the Ponts Couverts towers line up, and the terrace of the Barrage Vauban gives the one elevated frame in a flat city — the whole quarter in a single composition, strongest at blue hour when the towers are lit. The cathedral is the other pole: Notre-Dame's pink Vosges sandstone goes ember-red in low evening sun, and because the square is tight, the façade shoots best from rue Mercière with a couple walking toward it. Proposals work on the Quai des Bateliers with the cathedral spire across the water. In December the Christmas markets bring magic light and impossible crowds — go at dawn.