Panagia Paraportiani in the morning light

Paraportiani means the church by the side gate, and that is literally what it was: a chapel beside the postern of the vanished medieval castle. Between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries four more were built onto and over it, then everything was whitewashed until the whole cluster reads as a single melted sculpture of domes, buttresses and curved walls, standing on the shore where the Kastro quarter meets the sea.

Photographically it is unusual because it has no facade. Walk around it and every step gives a different silhouette, and the west side puts open sea directly behind the white mass. It is one of the very few subjects on Mykonos that needs no styling — a couple in plain clothes against that shape is the whole picture.

Light decides everything. Early morning rakes across the curves and gives the domes shadow and volume, and the little square in front is empty. By eleven the sun is overhead, the whitewash goes flat as chalk and there is a permanent queue of phones. Late afternoon puts the building in its own shadow, which works only if you want a silhouette against a bright sea. The church is repainted each spring, so the white is at its cleanest in early summer.

It is an active church: shoot from outside, keep the doorway clear and stay away entirely if a service is on. The square is small, so a session works in short passes rather than a long set-up — and Little Venice is thirty metres further along the shore, which makes the two an obvious pair.