Dawn versus Sunset – Part 2
In the past I made a short introduction to the subject of shooting photographs either in the morning or in the afternoon.
Today, I will make an emphasis on this: shooting photographs at both times of the day is important; one of the reasons for doing so, beyond our commitment with a given discipline, is that, from the point of view of logistics, certain photographs cannot be taken at both times, there are coincidences that must be captured in the morning and there are others that must be captured in the afternoon.
Why? There are versions of photographs that simply cannot be taken for logistical reasons, the great majority of these reasons being geographical in nature. How can we shoot a good photograph of the landscape I refer to below?
According to what I have told you, this would be the logic of it: by sunset, colors would saturate, the forest would take upon a deeper and warmer coloring, the skies would flush with an array of colors and impressive clouds, and the mountain would cast elongated shadows adding drama and strength to the whole picture... thus this photograph would be better than if taken in plain daylight.
I cherish this photograph because I learned a hard lesson from it (the one I'm teaching to you right now) because I was never able to capture the image that I sought. This picture was taken in Bariloche, Argentina; I waited with my camera one full hour for the sunset, I was ready, but when the sun went down, there was no orange light, there were no spectacular clouds, no reflections in the lake ever came. The reason was that, out of frame, to the left, there are these stunning super-high mountains that belong to the Andean mountain range which totally blocked the sun. The orange light was just one long shadow, and neither trees nor skies were reflected in the lake, no saturated blue came to sight, everything was mere flat gray. The forest was a dark mass, totally graceless.
A few days after, wondering why I had not been able to shoot this sensational picture in that terrific landscape, I finally grasped my error… I must have shot it at dawn! when the sunlight would have come in from the east where the mountains are not so high.
So this is the lesson that I want to teach to you today: always think about the geographical conditions of the site where you stand, and carefully think which the best time of day is to shoot certain pictures: some may be captured at dawn, some at sunset, and some can be shot at either time.
