Santa Maddalena Church, Val di Funes

Santa Maddalena, in the green Val di Funes (Villnöß) of South Tyrol, is the picture that defines the Dolomites for many photographers: a small white-and-stone church with a slender steeple standing alone amid sloping meadows, with the jagged grey wall of the Odle (Geisler) peaks rising sheer behind it. The classic frame is shot from the gentle viewpoint hill a short walk beyond the village, looking across the pastures so that the church sits small in the foreground and the serrated range fills the background; a telephoto lens is the key tool here, compressing the church and the distant peaks into a single dramatic plane, while a wide-angle captures the broader sweep of valley, farmhouses and mountains. Because the valley and its meadows face broadly east, the prime windows are sunrise, when soft light rakes across the grass and the church catches the first warmth, and the golden hour before sunset, when the Odle wall blushes with the enrosadira alpenglow. A second celebrated subject lies nearby: the baroque chapel of San Giovanni in Ranui, framed against the same peaks from a short path by a paying car park. The scene is at its finest in late spring and early summer, when the meadows are lush and dotted with wildflowers, and again in autumn, when the larches turn gold; mist and low cloud weaving around the peaks add drama in any season. There is no fee to photograph the standard church viewpoint, which is reached on a short, easy walk, though visitors should respect that this is a working farming community and keep to paths and field edges rather than trampling the hay meadows. A tripod is easy to set on the viewpoint in the quiet early hours; drones are restricted over the populated valley and should not be flown near the church or farms. For the strongest single image, arrive before dawn, set up on the viewpoint hill with a telephoto, and wait for the first light to catch the church as the Odle peaks glow behind.