It’s amazing how different the same place can look just minutes apart during a sunrise or sunset. Here’s an example from Artists Point in Grand Marais, MN on the North Shore of Lake Superior.
Sunrise at Artists Point
I had pulled an all-nighter shooting the Milky Way at nearby Two Island Lake in the Superior National Forest before heading down the hill to the Big Lake at 0:dark thirty. Getting out to the east end of Artists Point meant scrambling over unstable rocks along the Lake Superior shoreline in the pitch dark. Luckily, neither I nor any of my camera gear fell in the water. The things we photographers do to get the shots!
Blue Hour
The blue hour is the period of twilight during dawn each morning and dusk each evening when the sun is a significant distance below the horizon and the residual, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue hue. In general, it starts about an hour before sunrise and lasts 30 minutes or so. Same at the other end, it starts about half an hour after sunset and lasts approximately 30 minutes.
Dawn Breaking
About 15 minutes before sunrise, the sky begins to change from blue to pink or orange.
Golden Hour
In photography, the golden hour is a period shortly after sunrise or before sunset during which daylight is redder and softer than when the Sun is higher in the sky. This is a magical time of day for dramatic landscape photographs. This is from the same location, just a slightly different composition.
Here’s another from the same spot (different composition) just a few minutes later:
I had the place all to myself, just listening to the waves rolling up against the rocky shoreline. All of these photos are up in the online Landscape Gallery if you’d like to take a closer look.
Which do you like best?