Shooting a good sunset photo may be the most underestimated photography exercise out there. This is the one image I guarantee every camera owner has taken. When people see a sunset they know that they should try and capture it. When that sun hits the horizon humans are over taken with its magic. I have even been on the 101 in LA, stuck in horrible traffic, looking at one of the most atrocious landscapes on the planet and all I want to do is grab my camera and shoot when the sky conditions are right. You can be anywhere, if there is a great sunset you can bet even the camera phones will tracking the suns retreat. I thought I would throw out a couple of tips for capturing this special daily moment.
Rule of thirds- This may be a throw away tip for a lot of people, but I believe it is important. If you are shooting the sun don’t put it directly in the center of the image. Of course if you have an artistic reason to break this rule try it, but for most cases move your subject around the frame and see what feels best. Remember this is Funtography! Have fun and experiment!
Strong foreground element- Sunsets by them selves usually don’t make great photographs, but they make amazing back drops! Find a subject to put in your fore ground, it can be a rock, a tree, a silhouetted person…anything. Even if you think that the fore ground element is insignificant you will be amazed how this balances the final composition.
Do not put the horizon in the middle of frame- Here is another great compositional trick, keep your horizon low in the image if you want to have the sky be dominant. Keep the horizon high if you want the ground to be dominant. Some times you will want concentrate on the clouds that are on fire with the final rays of light cutting across them and then there will be times, possible when shooting water, when you want to focus your image on the reflection of amazing color. What ever you do, though, try to keep that horizon from being dead center.
Shoot after the sun goes down- My favorite time to shoot is actually after the sun disappears. Some call this the after glow or after burn. Most of my sunset favorites come from right after sunset to thirty minutes later. The great part about shooting at this time is that you still get great explosions of color in the sky but the contrast of the shot becomes more manageable.
Cool white balance- Here is a little white balance trick, and since we are all shooting raw it can betaken care of in post with no cost to the image quality. Instinctively people think they need to warm up a sunset picture, because they want to enhance the warm feeling they had when taking the picture. But I actually you sunset pictures can really pop when you cool them off. I don’t mean evening off the red glow of the sunset but actually going cooler then that. practice this one in post, then when you get the hang of the temperatures, dial it in on your camera while shooting.
Sunrise is also another great time to shoot. The nice thing about early morning shoots is that there are not as many people around at that time. The only effect it would have on these tips is that you would want to shoot 30 minutes before Sunrise to get that nice low contrast glow period. Again, have fun!