On days when puffy cumulus clouds hover in the eastern sky, dramatic color is likely to occur. The clouds’ undersides reflect the warm tones of the rising sun, and if you’re lucky, they’ll turn shades of pink, red, orange and yellow. All foreground material will be in silhouette, so look for subject matter with great shape and form. Winter trees, rock monoliths, people on hillsides, animals, and city skylines all make potentially great subjects. Above and Below: Midday light is harsh and contrasty. Base your meter reading on the sky, which will render the silhouette black. Silhouettes that reveal detail often look like mistakes and will result in overexposed backgrounds. The color and drama in the sky is important to make the photograph work. The more saturated the color becomes, the stronger the image. Bracketing is highly recommended, especially when shooting with slide film. The low light levels at dawn necessitate the use of a tripod. Fast film would help, but I advocate using the slowest possible film as the colors are richer, the grain is smaller, and the film is sharper. These factors are important if you’re considering making enlargements of 11x14 or larger. Subjects photographed in the “sweet light” of dawn make for appealing images. The light at dawn changes quickly, which means big changes in exposure as the sun rises. This shouldn’t be a problem when using program or other automatic modes, but if you’re shooting in manual mode, be sure to check the readings often. Dawn is also a good time to experiment with filters. Your goal should be to enhance the color in the sky without making it look phony. I recommend trying sunset, fluorescent (FLD), and enhancing filters. When the peak colors of dawn dissipate, you’ll have a few minutes before the sun crests the horizon. During this time, look for subjects that can be sidelit to reveal patterns and textures. This adds a three-dimensional quality to your images. Subjects that are frontlit at first light can be effective, but they lack the dimension of sidelit ones. A bonus to a sidelit subject is its 90° angle to the sun. This creates maximum effect when using a polarizing filter, which gives it greater color saturation. Be careful to avoid over-polarizing, as many of today’s emulsions already render dramatic sidelit subjects at first light. Patterns and texture are dramatized as warm light rakes across a scene. The sun’s low angle emphasizes textures and warm-light effects. In the summer, the sun rises quickly, and you’ll need to work fast. Fall and spring allow you some additional time. Winter sunrises provide sweet light for the longest amount of time, as the sun tracks the horizon instead of rising straight up.