Cadini di Misurina
Scale, light, and a good sense of lingering among the spires.
Elopement Photography
Cadini di Misurina – the chain of Misurina, a wall of linked spires above the valley of the same name. The Tre Cime hike has long been the famous one; the Cadini rose on Instagram. Both leave from the same spot, and the locals have reworked access over the last few years – you book a parking spot now, and the winding road up isn’t open without one. The traffic eased. The trails stayed popular – sunrise to sunset, most of the year.
Years from now, a good photograph doesn’t just show you Cadini di Misurina. You can still feel whether it was warm or cold, hear the wind, sense what was in the air, and what it felt like to be there together.
“She captured not just the moments but the essence of the day, whilst making incredible art at the same time.” — Ebony, Dolomites, 2023
An Italian family I lived with as a ragazza alla pari first brought me to the Dolomites in 2007. They’ve stayed with me ever since – the valleys, and the people in them.
My work is anchored in Patgific – a 300-year-old Romansh concept from Graubünden, in the Swiss Alps, about slowing down enough to really enjoy what’s in front of you. Here in the Dolomites the Ladin have their own: sté de bona ueia – to be in good spirits, to enjoy life. Same family of feeling, different peaks.
Raised in a painter’s studio, I look for where the landscape builds its own architecture. Cadini is as literal as it gets – the chain of the name, a rampart of stone no one built.
“Her work is for those who want their day held with clarity, where moments remain recognisable to themselves, even as they take on the quiet weight of memory.” — The Lane
Navigating the Cadini
Plateau
For real privacy, the surest way is up – a helicopter landing on a broad plateau most hikers never reach, across from the spires. The Cadini one way, the Tre Cime the other, the Großglockner far off in Austria on a clear day; I love that distant view as much as the famous one. Up here you can stand as long as you like. No trail, no line, no one waiting on you – time to take it in, which is the whole reason to come. Now and then one other couple lands in their own helicopter, but the plateau is wide and faces every way. It’s only happened once – another couple came down just after us; the couples took a photo together, and we photographers split the plateau in two and swapped halfway through.
Foot
On foot is possible too, if the rest of the day is quiet somewhere else. It may look easy online, but it’s a real hike and a busy one – out at the viewpoint you’re filmed and photographed without being asked, and there’s a queue for the ledge, so your turn comes with a line waiting on it. Stand a moment too long to take the Cadini in, and people start to mind. Some couples want it anyway, and I’ll happily shoot it – but the soaking-it-in part, the reason you came, is up on the plateau.
I take only a very small number of couples in the Dolomites each year, so that every day gets the attention and the hand-edited care it asks for.
While a single day is possible, most take around a day and a half – the mountains to yourselves through the quiet hours, first light, last light. Around twelve hours across it. €9000.
Espresso before sunrise, the light going long by evening, and being so present you forget to document it (luckily, I did).