Twelve colours, one price
The collection holds twelve flying dresses: Cherry, Emerald, Navy, Black, Verdant, Ginger, Snowy, Golden, BronZey, Aqua, Lavender and Orchid. One is included in every photoshoot, in the colour you choose, and choosing one does not change the price. There is no premium colour.
That removes the only reason to compromise, and leaves a single question: which of these will look like something against the particular background you are standing in front of.
What the background is actually made of
All three locations are variations on one palette. Giza is limestone, sand and, for most of the year, a pale haze that lifts the sky towards white near the horizon. The dunes are sand and sky. Fayoum adds water and the white dunes, which are the brightest ground of the three.
In other words: the background is light, warm and low in contrast almost everywhere. This is lovely, and it is unforgiving of a dress in the same register. The colours that fail here are not ugly colours. They are colours that happen to be made of the same light as the sand.
The ones that separate
Against that palette, a saturated colour from the cool or deep end of the collection reads immediately, at any distance, in any light.
- Cherry and Orchid are the strongest performers against stone. They hold their colour in direct sun, they stay readable in silhouette, and they photograph as the subject even when the dress is small in a wide frame.
- Emerald, Verdant and Aqua work on the same principle from the other side of the wheel. Emerald in particular is the one people are surprised by, because there is no green anywhere in a Giza frame, so it has the whole scene to itself.
- Navy and Black are the most reliable choices of all for a wide landscape shot, because the separation does not depend on colour at all. They work as shape. They are also the two that take the hottest midday sun least comfortably, which is worth weighing against the time of day you are shooting.
- Lavender sits between the two groups. It separates well in the softer light either side of the middle of the day and loses a little of its distinctness under a hard overhead sun.
The ones that need thought
Snowy, Golden, Ginger and BronZey are the colours the background is already wearing. None of them is a bad choice, and all four produce photographs that people love, but they ask for something in return.
Snowy against white dunes or hazed limestone is a tonal photograph rather than a graphic one: all the interest is in the fold and the movement of the fabric, not in the contrast. It is the most bridal of the twelve and the one that most rewards being shot low against sky rather than ground.
Golden, Ginger and BronZey are the warm earth tones, and they are at their best when there is something behind you that is not earth: sky, water at Fayoum, or the shaded face of a building on a rooftop. Put any of them against a sunlit dune at the same angle and the dress and the ground become one object.
If one of these four is the colour you want, say so. The adjustment is the photographer's, not yours. It is a matter of what goes behind you, and that is a decision made on the roof in ten seconds.
If you genuinely cannot choose
Two things are worth knowing. The first is that an extra dress is an add-on with a published price rather than a negotiation, so a second colour in the same session is a known quantity before you arrive.
The second is that the colour is confirmed with you before the date, along with fit, because availability is per date and not everything is on every roof on every morning. Tell us a first and second choice when you enquire and that conversation ends in one message instead of three.