When to Shoot: Dawn

If you’ve fallen in love with an amazing landscape image, chances are it was taken near dawn or dusk—those are the two times of day when the light is beautiful, the shadows are soft, and landscapes far and away look their best. Doing a dawn shoot is harder because you have to get up so darn early, but it can pay off by presenting you with spectacularly colorful skies and smooth, glassy reflections. The key to dawn shoots might surprise you: most of your best shots will probably come before the sun actually rises. That is your prime shooting time—the 15 to 20 minutes before the sun actually breaks the horizon usually deliver the best light. You need to be set up, in place, and ready to start shooting at least 30 minutes before sunup, so set that alarm early. If you have some clouds in the sky to catch the color as the sun is getting ready to rise, it can truly be magical. Once the sun does come up, you’ll usually have (depending on the location, and if you’re in the mountains and such) around 10 to 15 more minutes to shoot before the sun gets up in the sky enough to where the beautiful sunrise light turns into bright, harsh light, and the shoot is over. The whole idea is to shoot when the light is beautiful, soft, and flattering to the landscape you’re standing in front of. That window of “good light” totals around 30 to 35 minutes (20 minutes before sunrise and around 10 to 15 after it rises). These lengths of time are generally what to expect (or harsh realities, depending on how you look at it) and are based on where you’re shooting (for example, in the summer in Norway, sunset light lasts for four hours) and what you’re shooting (mountains can make the sunrise later than advertised).