One Minute Photography Tip - Where To Stand For The Best Landscape Colors

El Captain In Sunrise, Yosemite National Park

A quick photography tip video I created at Grand Teton National Park yesterday.

We all know that photography is all about being in the right place at the right time.  Today's tip is very simple - where to stand, when you do your sunrise or sunset photography.

A very simple rule of thumb is to have the sun behind you.

For example when you are at Grand Teton and you want to photograph the top three peaks of the park - Grand Teton, Mt. Owen and Mt Moran.  All the overlooks (the best ones are Teton Point Turnout, Cascade Canyon Turnout, Blacktail Ponds Overlook.  See detailed map located on the east. 

Therefore, to capture the best colors of the Teton peaks, it has to be during the sunrise hours but not the sunset hours.  During the sunrise hours, the sun will be in the east, and when you face the mountains in the west, the sun will be behind you.

This by no means tells you can't capture awesome images facing other directions.  For example you can totally face east during sunrise (facing the sun) or face west during sunset (facing sun again) to capture the sky colors, but the mountains will appear dark in this case.

In fact in many scenarios, the sun is not straight behind you, and shines sideways onto the mountains. This will also give you opportunities to capture beautiful colors (see the above Yosemite image). Just make sure the the sun is not behind the mountains unless you are into the natural colors of the rocks, grey, brown, dark, whatever.

Therefore again, to capture the best colors of the mountains and other landscape, try to stand where the sun is behind you during sunrise and sunset hours.

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