Twenty Minutes Before The Sun.

In the twenty minutes before the sun touches the Caribbean, the sand turns the colour of a wedding ring left out overnight — a soft brass that reflects every face it meets. We do not begin sooner. We do not stay later. The light we have built a studio around is shorter than most dinner reservations, and the brides who understand this become the brides whose pictures will travel — quietly, beautifully, for the rest of their lives. There is a particular kind of woman who flies in from Milan or Toronto or São Paulo for a single Tuesday in Tulum, and that woman knows how to wait.

Most resort photographers spend the day chasing groups: the hotel pool at noon, the lobby at three, the lazy buffet line at five. We do not do that. We arrive at the location ninety minutes before the session, alone, and walk the beach barefoot until we find the only stretch of sand where the palm shadows fall in the right direction. The directors of photography on the films we love — Lubezki, Deakins, Sandgren — are obsessed with the same forty-minute window. We learned the obsession from them.

By the time you arrive, we already know where you'll stand. We know which way the bride's veil will catch the breeze; we know which side of the groom's shoulder the light will pour over. We know what to do if the toddler bolts; we know how to coax the grandmother out from under her sun hat. Every minute of every session has been pre-walked. It looks loose because the rehearsal happened before you got there.

That is the hour. That is the work. That is the only studio we have ever wanted to run.