Weekly Photography Tips - Sunrises

There is a universal truth about sunrise photography, start early and stay late. The best color isn't always at the exact moment the sun peeks over the horizon.

Astro-twilight occurs about an hour and a half before sunrise, from then on the sky will begin to lighten and fill with color. Often, depending on how low or high the clouds are you may not see good color until after the sun rises above them.

The image above was taken about 10 minutes before the one below. At the moment of sunrise most of the color was gone. I didn't get out quite as early as I had planned but I did managed to capture the best part of it.

There was a moment, shortly after sunrise, when the sun was above the low cloud on the horizon but below the clouds closer to me that I may have been able to get a really nice image but I had packed up my gear so I could make the morning ferry off the island. If it hadn't been a full ferry I might have risked it and pushed the time but that's life photographing the Outer Banks.