Taking photos of sunrises over the sea

I really enjoy taking photos of landscapes at sunrise. There’s a special magical quality about photos taken at that time of the day.

In South Africa, on the Kwazulu Natal coast, you only get to see the sun rising over the sea (as opposed to setting over the sea); so if you holiday in that part of the world a lot (like we do), you get to practice your sunrise photos quite a bit.  This is especially true if you have young kids, because there’s nothing they like better during the holidays than waking up before the crack of dawn!

General principles to get a good photo:

1.  Make sure the horizon is straight, and if it isn’t, fix it in Photoshop.

2.  Don’t place the sun squarely in the centre of the photo, unless there’s something else of interest in the photo to draw your eyes.

3.  The horizon shouldn’t be in the middle of the photo, think in thirds

This photo was taken in Cape Town and the island in the distance is Robben Island.

4.  Try and get rocks, a seagull, a ship or even clouds in the photo to make it more interesting… unless you’re taking photos of HUGE waves where the point of the photo is the spray.

5.  Take the photos before the sun gets too high.  As soon as the sun gets too high, it becomes too bright and your exposure will be affected.

So, take advantage of your early risers, and get to the beach before the sun has completely risen, and snap away. It’s the best time of the day because there’s generally very few people on the beach and you can still get photos of untrodden beaches too!


Jeanette is a South African working mother of 2 very busy boys. She’s been taking a photograph every day since June 2007 and you can watch her skills improve at Photography by Jeanette.