Melda & Ufuk. Elopement among the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia.

Some places are too big to share. When Melda and Ufuk decided to marry, they didn't want a hall, a seating plan or two hundred guests. They wanted a horizon. So we met before dawn in Cappadocia, in that strange and beautiful corner of Turkey where the rock rises into soft, weathered towers and the sky fills, every clear morning, with hot air balloons.

An elopement in Cappadocia is really a conversation with the light. The valleys are quiet and blue in the half-dark, and then the sun crests the ridge and everything turns to gold at once. We timed the morning around that single moment. By the time the first balloons lifted off, Melda's dress was already catching the wind on a ridge above Göreme, and the whole valley below them was drifting with colour.

I photograph elopements the way I photograph weddings: documentary first, fine art always. I'm not interested in stiff, repeated poses. I want the real things, the way Ufuk steadied Melda's hand on the uneven rock, the way she laughed when the wind took her veil, the long quiet they fell into when the balloons rose around them. My job is to stay close, stay calm, and let an extraordinary place do what it does.

We moved through Cappadocia the way you'd actually want to spend a morning there. Up on the open ridges first, with the balloons; then down into the warmer light among the fairy chimneys, where the rock glows almost amber. Later, as the valley filled with golden dust, we found the horses, those half-wild herds the region is known for, and Melda and Ufuk stood among them in silhouette, two small figures against a landscape that felt almost prehistoric. We finished in the cool shadow of a cave, where the only light was the open mouth of the rock and everything else fell into soft, cinematic dark.

What I love about a Cappadocia elopement is that the place asks nothing of you. You don't have to perform. You stand in front of one of the most surreal landscapes on earth, with the person you've chosen, and the photographs almost make themselves. The balloons are the postcard, yes. But the pictures I keep coming back to are the quiet ones in between: a forehead resting against a forehead, a dress lifting in the wind, the first gold light landing on two faces that have just promised each other everything.

If you're dreaming of eloping in Cappadocia, a sunrise ceremony, a balloon-filled horizon, an intimate morning with just the two of you, I would love to photograph it. I travel from Würzburg, Germany, for elopements and destination weddings across Turkey, Europe and worldwide, and there are few places I'd rather point a camera than this one.