Why I love to shoot at Sunrise. The best light for landscape photography is first thing in the morning and the last light of the day. It definitely is worth getting up nice and early to capture a great sunrise. So, get out there, take some photos, and see what you can discover. During my stays on Bali Indonesia I loved to get up early and to hunt for great Sunrises.
Less People
“I am not a morning person”. “I am not an early bird”. You have heard these one many times and for a good reason – most people do not like waking up very early, especially while it is still dark outside. Many of us end up working late, eating late and waking up late, which has become the norm for the bulk of our society?
Why not take advantage of this as a photographer? Instead of being around all the night owls at sunset, if you wake up early, you will not have to battle for a spot or deal with cloning out people in your photos. At sunrise, you might see photographers like you in the area, who are generally going to be more respectful towards other photographers, while those with their cell phone cameras are probably not going to care or even notice that they might be in your frame. This is why I love to shoot Sunrise. .
Light is Cooler
At sunrise, the color temperature of the light is always going to be cooler with more bluish tones, because light bounces off less particles in the air. Short wavelength blue and violet tones easily reach our eyes and our cameras, allowing us to see and photograph a clearer sky with more defined colors. Once clouds start reflecting red and orange colors, we can capture them more vividly, since nothing is scattered in the atmosphere.
In contrast, the atmosphere tends to be thicker at sunset time, bouncing light all over the place and potentially causing sunsets to appear more washed out and sometimes even duller in comparison. Because sunlight passes through more particles, the blue and violet wavelengths often can’t make it through, while longer wavelengths of visible light continue their journey, causing warmer colors to appear at sunset. Cool tones change into warmer tones, creating different, more yellowish light. However, this does not mean that sunsets are always going to look worse. Sunsets can produce more colors than sunrises, which is why you do not want to skip on those either. And in some cases, a particular spot is only good for a sunset due to the position of the sun.
