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Sunrises and sunsets are amongst the most emotive shots that we can take. Yet, we often end up disappointed by the end results. The problem is that it can be very difficult to scale down the natural beauty of a sunset into a single two dimensional image.
The other issue with them is that social media is awash with them. Some are absolutely stunning but many are quite mediocre. This kind of desensitizes us to their majesty.
Newcomers to photography, and even more experienced photographers, often repeat the same mistakes when shooting sunrises or sunsets, so today, we are going to take a look at how to make your sunrise or sunset shots look special.
The Common Mistakes.
The first and most common mistake is to just shoot the sunset. There is a temptation to simply point the camera at the sun and fire away. This is understandable because of how beautiful a good sunset can look in real life, however by ignoring the concepts of composition we end up with a bland image that will not inspire you to continue shooting.
Another very common mistake is to simply place the sun dead centre of the frame within a landscape or seascape. Again this can make your image look boring and generic.
Lastly, relying on the camera’s metered exposure can also lead to disappointment. Although vastly improved in the digital era, camera’s exposure meters are still very much fooled by scenes that have a large area of light in them and will consequently often underexpose.
Through this article we will take a look at how to counter these common mistakes and look at other ways to improve your sunrise and sunset photography.
Give Yourself Time
The problem with a lot of dawn or dusk images is that they tend to be more spontaneous than planned. Now clearly you cannot accurately plan for a spectacular sunset but you can plan to be in the right place at the right time and hope for good light.
Good sunrises are particularly difficult to shoot unless you preplan a little. To get good, creative shots, you need to be relaxed, you need to have an understanding of your location and you also need a little luck. That will rarely happen if you just pull over in the car because the sunset looks amazing.
The best dawn/dusk shots will come from places that you are familiar with and where you can spend 45 minutes or more preparing the shot, finding the best locations and angles. Once you have established the shot, you have time to concentrate on the exposure and getting the composition correct. Which leads us nicely to.
Composition Rules Ok?
As mentioned earlier, one of the major issues with many sunrise and sunset shots is they tend to solely concentrate on the sun. You can dramatically improve your shots by taking the mindset that the sunset is just the backdrop to your subject.
What I mean by this is that you need a foreground interest as a counterpoint to your sunset. This can be anything from a classic silhouette of a person to rock pools on a beach. It can be the frame of a window or a single wind turbine in the distance.
Even without some form of foreground interest you can still make your sunset shots look good. Place the sun on a third, either upper or lower and use the ground/sky as a counterpoint to it. Use any clouds in the sky, you can make them a major part of the composition with the sun to the left or right.
By thinking of the sunset as the background not the subject you will soon find more creative ways to shoot.
Create Mood and Emotion In Your Sunsets
Sunsets don’t always have to be serene seascape style shots. They can be angry, perhaps a storm approaching, they can be frenetic, for example rush hour in a city.
Identify that mood before you start shooting and you will find yourself further expanding it as the shoot continues.
Again the actual sunset can take a backseat not only to the mood of the scene but also the subject that you choose within that scene. Getting there early will help you feel the mood and emotion of the scene before you start shooting.
You should also consider whether the sun actually needs to be in the shot. The soft golden light of dawn or dusk will give your viewers all the information that they need about the time of day. Just hinting at the sun can give you a powerful and emotive image.
Nail The Exposure
As we mentioned, one of the sources of disappointment in our sunset shots can often be attributed to incorrect exposure. Because the camera may have a tendency to underexpose, your sunset shots may appear darker than natural.
Think carefully about your exposure. If your composition is one where the subject is going to be a silhouette, then that natural under exposure might be the way to go. However, if you want your subject to show some definition, illuminated by soft golden light then you might need to raise your exposure a stop or perhaps two.
The exposure you choose will dramatically change the mood of your sunset. If you are in any doubt then shoot off a 5 image bracket with 1 stop differences.
Don’t Over Process
Another tendency with cameras is to over correct the white balance. This is not an issue if we are shooting RAW, however it’s difficult to correct if we have used JPEG. The issue is that faced with a large block of yellow/red light, the camera’s colour meter will tend to swing more to blue on the Kelvin scale. This will tone down the natural looking colours of our sunset.
Seeing this we often tend to over correct our sunset shot in post production. Adding unnatural amounts of red/yellow and excessive saturation.
Rather than using colour controls in post, your first port of call should be the white balance slider. If your sunset looks a little cold, move the white balance toward the warmer end of the scale, that is higher degrees Kelvin. Try not to use auto adjust as you will find the same issue, the editing software will try to neutralize the warmth in the shot.
Once you are happy that the sunset has a natural warmth, then you can start to add a little extra colour and saturation. The vibrance tool is actually preferable for this over the saturation slider, as it only enlivens areas with relatively low saturation.
The sunrise and sunset are amongst the very best times of day for photography. By keeping in mind some of the suggestions we have made in this article, you should be able to improve the creativity of your dawn and dusk photographs.
Further Reading
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