Retiro — the Crystal Palace

Built for an 1887 exhibition and never taken down, the Palacio de Cristal is a glass-and-iron shell on the edge of a small lake, backed by bald cypresses that go copper in November.

Inside, the light is extraordinary and free — a whole room of it, diffused through glass, with no direction to fight. It suits family sessions where you cannot control where people stand. Outside, shoot from across the lake so the building and its reflection both fit.

The rest of the Retiro carries the session: the rose garden in May, the boating lake with the colonnade behind it, and long avenues of trimmed hedge that work at any hour.