Place du Palais at eight in the morning

The Place du Palais is a big paved rectangle with the Palais des Papes filling one entire flank: fifty metres of blank fortress wall, twin towers over the entrance, and the Petit Palais and the cathedral steps closing the other ends. It is the most imposing piece of architecture in Provence and it needs distance to read, which is exactly what the square gives.

The trick is scale. Stand well back and place the couple small at the foot of the wall, and the picture is about the building; move in under the towers and the stone becomes a plain textured backdrop for a close portrait. The cathedral steps on the north side add height, and the ramp up to the Rocher des Doms starts from the same corner, so the square works as the hinge of a whole session.

Eight in the morning is the honest window. The square is genuinely empty, the low sun comes in from the east across the facade, and there is no queue at the palace entrance yet. By ten there are coaches, queues and a market of visitors; by midday the wall is in flat light and the square is unusable for anything quiet.

Practical: the palace itself is ticketed with its own hours, and the square outside is public and free — you do not need a ticket for the frames described here. In July the festival covers every wall in posters and fills the square day and night, which is wonderful reportage and impossible for portraits. And the mistral funnels hard across this open space: check the wind, because the square offers no shelter at all.