How to Shoot a Sunset (or Sunrise)

Sunsets are a wildly popular photographic subject.
And for good reason. Sunlight pouring in from the horizon, bouncing off clouds in a myriad of colors, is a feast for the eyes. But how many times have you looked at a sunset photo, ooh’d and ah’d at the colors, and then moved on with little memory or interest in what you saw? I am continually disappointed with snapshots of sunsets without any other interesting elements. The colors of the sky are not enough! Some composition is usually necessary to turn your “snapshot” into a “photograph.”

Add Interest

This image of a sunset over Florence, Italy was shot from Florence, Italy’s Piazzale Michelangelo on the southern bank of the Arno River. In addition to the glowing orange sky over the Tuscan hillls, it also includes a diagonal river with repetitive bridges and red roof-topped buildings. Not only do these elements add compositional interest, but the sunset bounces off them in a variety of matching, yet varying, hues.

In contrast, check out below a sunrise over the Caribbean Sea right off the shores of Belize’s Ambergris Caye. While the colors may be dramatic, and the clouds may add some interesting texture, the image has no interesting subject other than the sun. Beyond the colors, there is little unique about this photograph. Sun. Sky. Clouds. Whatever.

Manage the Light

With sunrises and sunsets, the sky may be dramatically bright, but the ground may be smothered in shadows, causing an uneven exposure throughout the composition. First, as noted in my last post, use a graduated neutral density filter to create exposure parity. Close the aperture to get as much as possible into focus with a large depth of field. Also, since the sun will only add extreme contrast, showing up as one big blown out highlight over a very dark ground, keep it out of the picture.

To account for the relative darkness of everything below the horizon, use a slower shutter speed to allow more light in. Not too slow, since you don’t want to bleach out the sky either.

A slow shutter speed, however, increases the chance for blurriness. So, to keep everything sharp, keep your camera very still. Do what you can to steady the shot.

I highly recommend using a tripod. If one is not handy, lean the camera against a sturdy object like a wall or a tree. Keep your elbows in and camera close to your body, take a deep breath, hold it, and squeeze (not press) the trigger.

Kick it up a notch by using a wired or wireless remote control trigger so you don’t have to actually touch the camera. Go over the top by using a mirror lock-up, which prevents shaking to the camera itself during “the click.”

And if you are using a tripod, maybe even do some bracketing so you can have the opportunity to use high dynamic range (HDR) software in post-processing.

In any event, you should be taking lots of shots anyway. The scene will change every few seconds. Reds will turns to oranges. Blues will turn to purples. Take as many as possible, because while it may feel like a long time before sunset starts, when it hits the horizon it will drop like a rock.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 19th, 2010 at 6:13 pm. It is filed under Shooting and tagged with Composition, Filters, Sunsets. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.