Seceda
Scale, light, and a good sense of lingering beneath the needles.
Elopement Photography
Seceda is sharp and graphic – one of the most recognizable ridgelines in the Dolomites, a run of stone needles above a steep drop. It’s also one of the most managed corners of these mountains, so how it feels comes down to timing and how you reach it.
Years from now, a good photograph doesn’t just show you Seceda. You can still feel whether it was warm or cold, hear what the morning sounded like up there, 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. At Seceda it’s all of it at once – the needles on one flank, a long wall on another, and range after range opening out beyond.
“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 ridge
The only quiet on Seceda is outside cable car hours – and even then, don’t expect to be alone.
The cable car from Ortisei is the usual way up, though not fitting for elopements. In season it brings the crowds, the lines can be long even early, and the area is open and exposed to the sun. In the very off-season, when the crowds thin, reaching the ridge by cable car might work.
Going up on foot is a better way – staying at a mountain hotel partway up, and hiking up in the dark to reach the ridge for sunrise. It’s a short climb but a steep one, a lot of height gained quickly and at altitude. When the days are long, like in June, this means starting in the middle of the night.
A helicopter can put you close to the ridge before the cable car opens, while it’s still yours. From there you can fly back (or to the next stop), or take the trails down instead.
Hiking down, you can explore some of the parts that many tourists miss.
About the fencing
In the romance-meets-nature kind of photography, we tend to edit out the man-made distractions. Most places that’s minor – a little fence here and there. Seceda is the exception. There it’s an abundance – fencing, marked paths you can’t leave, a turnstile now, rangers – and it’s edited out of nearly every elopement image you’ll see, mine included. The pictures are real; the emptiness isn’t.
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).