This time of year can be kind of tough for photographers. You have the end of wedding and your senior season, family sessions starting, and all of the photos to edit! It can be a trying time for most of us to try and keep it all organized, and manage to fit everything into the 24 hours we have in a day! One way that you can fit a little bit more into your schedule is mini sessions, but if you’re like me, that’s not something that sounds appealing. You want to give your clients a better experience with better lighting than you may be mid-day during a mini session marathon. In order to fit more into the day, I tend to schedule both sunrise and sunset photo sessions!! But here are a few differences between the two, and why I would choose one over the other!

Sunrise Photo Session

Sunrise Photo session are pretty amazing! There’s something kind of freeing with waking up before dawn, before everyone else, grabbing a warm drink (coffee if that’s your jam, or hot chocolate if you’re like me) and getting to watch the sunrise during a photo session. It’s even better when you get to do so at an amazing location, and a sunrise session is a perfect way to beat the mass amounts of people if the location is a touristy location! But here’s a few tips for sunrise sessions.

Know When Sunrise IS

Naturally you would think that this is a no-brainer. One of the MOST important thing about a sunrise session is knowing when sunrise actually is at your location. One of my favorite websites for that is sunrisesunset.com! You just put in your city and state, and it will give you a calendar of the month with the sunrise/sunset of each day! And you can even go months out! It’s a pretty handy tool! Once you know what time your sunrise will be, I would make sure to start shooting BEFORE the actual sunrise. I’m sure we’ve seen the golden hour, but there’s also the “blue hour” right before sunset! It’s the time JUST before the sunrises over the horizon, and the lighting is usually just as pretty! When I’m planning a sunrise session, I always have my clients show up about 30 minutes PRIOR to the actual sunrise. That gives us about 15 minutes to chat and warm up and little, and then 15 minutes in front of my camera warming up to me, and then the magic happens!

One thing that I DON’T like about sunrise sessions is that I feel like I only have about 45 minutes of AWESOME light. This time is from the 15 minutes before sunrise to the 30 minutes after. After than point, the sun is a bit too high, and unless I can shoot through something (and let’s be honest, in the Central Washington desert, we don’t have many trees), the lighting isn’t my favorite.

Check the Weather

I always to this for any shoot I have. I’m kind of a type-A personality, and I like to know what I’m walking into, but that’s exceptionally true when I am doing a sunrise shoot. It can make all the difference! Sometimes it will be a cloudy day, and the sunrise may be at a certain time, but it doesn’t peak out over the clouds until hours later. This can change the timing of the shoot, as well as make it so you don’t even have to wake up in the wee-hours of the morning! That’s always a plus in my book.

Know WHERE You Are Shooting

This is also up there with “things I do at every shoot.” I like to have a game plan of where i’ll be, and what locations I’ll use when, but for a sunrise session, it’s even more so. If I know a certain area is going to have light before another, I’ll be sure to use that location first, and then keep moving through the other location I’ve seen fit!

Prep Your Gear the Night Before

When I wake up around 4 or 5 in the morning, my brain isn’t always working right. I don’t want to stand the chance of forgetting something, like charging my batteries, or putting my charged battery back in my camera, so I make sure to load up all my gear the night before a sunrise shoot. That way, all I have to do is get myself ready, load it into the car, and head out! Easy!!

Sunset Photo Session

So while I really love the light of a sunrise session, I really don’t think anything can beat a sunset session. The light during the sunset, as well as the light after the sunset is just DREAMY!!!! Maybe it’s because I have done more sunset sessions than the latter, but each time I do one, I remember just how much I love them!

So while the most of the points I gave regarding sunrise sessions are similar for sunset sessions, there are a few differences.

Time for Shooting

I absolutely LOVE sunset photos sessions. Like I mentioned above, I feel like with sunrise sessions, I only have about 45 minutes of GREAT light. With sunset sessions, I feel like that just about doubles to AT LEAST an hour and a half (depending on where I’m shooting! Sometimes I’ll get even more!) I love to start my sunset photo sessions about 2 hours before sunset. Again, this gives me about 15 minutes to get my clients out of their cars, and chat, not feeling rushed to get started! That’s always important! After that, I feel like we get a good hour before the sunset, and then about 30 minutes after. The lighting after a sunset is just as lovely as the sunset itself!

Back to the Weather

For a sunrise session, you could have checked the weather the night before, and it drastically changed overnight. That’s one reason I think that weather forecasters have the best job. They can be 100% wrong, and they still keep their job. HA! With sunset sessions, you have a better idea of what the weather is doing and can adjust accordingly, and well before you can with a sunset session! Definitely a plus!

All in all, if I had to pick which was my favorite, sunset photo sessions would definitely take the cake. I just love that I have more time with my clients with amazing light! Sunrise sessions do have their own special place in my heart, but sunset photo sessions will take the win on this one! 🙂

If your a photographer, which one is your favorite!? Why do you love that one over the other?