Sunrises and sunsets
Or: nothing has changed except the colors
A trail on top of a mountain passes alongside a solitary tree during a color sunset. The subject is clear, the horizon line is one third from the bottom edge, the trail leads the viewer into the sunset, and the leading line meets the horizon line one third of the way from the edges.
This lesson is incredibly simple. When shooting a sunrise or sunset, the same basic rules of composition must all still apply. Pay attention to thirds and halves, depth, a clear subject, etc. Nothing has changed except the colors in the sky. Below, there are clear examples of good landscape photos that are taken while the sun rises/sets, and there are terrible landscape photos that are taken while the sun rises/sets.
Two mistakes are more common than any other. The first is a lack of a clear subject. A good landscape photo needs to properly showcase a clear subject. The other common error is overly saturating the image. There are clear examples of each below.
This is a properly edited sunrise. The rule of thirds is followed, the idea is clear, the image is balanced and has depth. The sunset and shadows look natural.
This is a well composed photo with light editing.
This is boring. It’s a colorful sunset and the horizon is straight. That’s about all there is to this image. Anybody can point a camera toward the sky. Our goal is to take interesting pictures.
#1: Is this one good or bad? Why?
#3: Is this one good or bad? Why?
No sunrise will ever look like this naturally. The grass looks weird, the horizon line is glowing, the sun is blown out, the top right corner is grainy, and the clouds are choppy. This is bad.
The bottom left is the best example of oversaturation problems, but the entire image is awful. The clouds are choppy, the sky is wrong, and the limestone and snow are the wrong colors.
There are a few items in the foreground that roughly follow the rule of thirds. That’s about all this photo has going for it. This is an example of a bad picture of a desert sunset.
#2: Is this one good or bad? Why?
#4: Is this one good or bad? Why?
Photos 1 and 3 are good. The subjects are clear and they follow the basic rules. The colorful skies only add drama to photos that are already good! Photo 2 has nothing interesting going on, it’s over saturated, and the horizon line is crooked. Photo 4 has some stuff scattered around the foreground, but there’s no sense of organization to it. The picture is way over saturated. To make it really obvious, look at the rocks in the foreground. Something just isn’t right with them, and that’s because the colors have been aggressively adjusted. The rays from the sun are also wrong, but that’s because the camera was set to the wrong aperture.
Sunrises and sunsets can add a lot of drama to a photograph, but remember that the core tenets of landscape photography are always the same. Nothing changes except for the color of the sky - and that is not enough to make a photo interesting on its own.