Seville has a colour palette — dress into it
Most cities are grey and you can wear anything. Seville is not. It is ochre and terracotta and warm cream stone, with blue-and-white tilework and a great deal of green from the orange trees. That is a strong, warm palette, and clothes either sit inside it or fight it. I'm a proposal photographer based here, and this is what I tell couples before every session.
Colours that work here
Warm neutrals are the safest and most beautiful choice: cream, camel, sand, soft white, terracotta, rust, olive. They belong to the city rather than sitting on top of it. Deep jewel tones also photograph beautifully against pale stone — emerald, burgundy, navy, mustard. A long dress in any of those, in a fabric with some movement, is close to foolproof.
What to avoid: neon and fluorescent shades, which bounce coloured light onto your face and are very hard to correct. Busy small patterns, which turn to visual noise at a distance. Large visible logos, which date a photograph instantly. And pure brilliant white head to toe in full sun, which can blow out against Seville's already-bright stone.
Coordinate, don't match
Two people in identical colours reads as a uniform. Pick a palette of two or three tones and each wear a different part of it — she is in cream, he is in soft olive or navy; she is in rust, he is in sand. You want the photographs to look like you dressed for the same evening, not like you were issued the same outfit.
Shoes: the thing people regret
Seville's old town is cobblestone, much of it uneven, and Barrio Santa Cruz is almost entirely so. Thin heels sink between the stones and slide on the polished ones. Every session where somebody has regretted their footwear, it was heels in Santa Cruz.
Block heels, wedges and nice flats all work and photograph just as well. If your heart is set on heels, bring them and wear something else to walk in — we will be moving between spots, and nobody photographs well while concentrating on not falling over.
Dressing for the season
Summer (June to September): natural fibres, and as little as you can get away with. Linen and cotton photograph far better than synthetics, which cling and shine when it is hot. Avoid anything that shows sweat across the back and underarms — mid-tones and patterns hide it, pale grey does not.
Spring and autumn: the easiest conditions of the year. A light layer you can add or remove gives you variety across the session at no cost.
Winter: a good coat becomes the outfit, because it is in every frame. A long wool coat in camel or a deep tone looks superb against the stone. Skip the puffer jacket if you possibly can.
Fabrics with movement — chiffon, silk, anything that catches a breeze — are worth choosing deliberately. Some of the best frames in any session come from a skirt or a scarf lifting as you turn.
The surprise-proposal problem
Here is the difficulty unique to a proposal: you know there will be photographs and your partner does not. You cannot tell them to dress up without giving the game away, and there is nothing worse than a partner who says yes and then spends the engagement shoot worrying that they are in a travel t-shirt.
The solution is always the same — give them a reason to dress well that has nothing to do with photography. Book somewhere genuinely nice for dinner afterwards and mention it that morning. Say the rooftop bar has a dress code. Suggest that since you are on holiday, you should both make an evening of it. Any of these gets you the outcome without a single suspicious word about cameras.
Two practical additions. Time the proposal before dinner rather than after, so you are photographed at your best and the meal becomes the celebration. And if your partner is the sort who would want to know, consider whether a surprise is really what they want — some people would genuinely rather have had their hair done. You know them; I do not.
The last five per cent
Keep your hands in mind — there will be close-up photographs of the ring, so nails are worth a thought, and that applies to whoever is holding the box as well. Watch for underwear lines under lighter fabrics in bright sun. Bring a small brush; Seville is often breezy. And take the hair tie off your wrist before we start.
None of this needs to become stressful. Wear something you feel like yourself in — that reads in a photograph more clearly than any colour theory. Next: work out when to propose, choose from the best places to propose in Seville, or get in touch and I will help you plan the whole evening.
