One thing that photographers are often willing to sacrifice is lack of sleep. This holds true for landscape photographers who often want to get the best light in the morning and the beautiful light in the evening. This definitely goes for wildlife photographers that often get up early or stay up late to catch specific behaviors.

When traveling somewhere beautiful, the first thoughts that most folks have is to start off the day slowly, enjoying their new surroundings and slowly easing into the relaxation that comes with being away from the grind of daily life.  

As a photographer this type of approach comes with some pitfalls because by the time you’ve rolled out of bed, sampled the local food, and slowly made your way to a local market or beach, it’s mid-morning and the sun is getting fairly high in the sky. At this point, if you decide to pull out your camera you’ll already have missed all the dramatic ‘golden hour’ light right after sunrise, and the light will most likely be harsh and unflattering. A beautiful landscape can help make up for boring light but there is definitely something special about capturing an early-morning sunrise when you get lucky enough to experience that explosion of colors bursting through the clouds.

“Dragging yourself out of bed before the sun begins to appear takes some planning”

Sunrise and the best morning light that accompanies it doesn’t last long. Before you even book your hotel, mentally map out the photos you’d like to capture and think about details like which direction the sun will rise from and how far away you’ll be staying from the location you want to shoot from. This will dictate how early you’ll need to get up, and how far you’ll have to walk or drive. You may even decide to book a hotel closer to your ideal photo shooting spots. And depending on how much time it takes to get to your preferred locations you may not have much time to scout the area once you arrive.

Needless to say, it doesn’t matter what time of day you’re taking photographs, photography is always an adventure. From sunrise to sunset, wildlife to nightlife, there is always something interesting to fill your viewfinder.