Almost everyone stops what they’re doing to witness Hawaii’s amazing sunsets. They’re spectacular and you’ll definitely want to have your camera ready to capture these memories.
Of course a photo that shows the ocean, sun and sky are nice to take. However, if you want to take a photo to the next level we have two simple tricks that will help you take more interesting sunset photos.
Position the sun off center
We naturally want to put the focus of the subject in the center of the photo, however for an interesting composition, put the sun off center. Some cameras offer a grid to aid in this process. Most photographers recommend putting the subject in either the first third or the second third of the grid. Another similar tip is to put the horizon off center as well.
Snap your photo with something in the foreground
Our tendency is to take a photo from the beach with nothing but the ocean, sun and sky in the scene. (See the above photo as an example.) While there’s nothing wrong with that, to take your photo to the next level, look to see if there are palm trees, tide pools, lava rocks or even people that you can put in the foreground of your photo.
Including something in the foreground of your sunset shot gives context and a sense of place to your photo. Let’s look through the following photos to illustrate what we mean.
We took the following sunset shot in Ko Olina. Compare and contrast it to the photo above. Including the palm trees makes a photo look more like it’s from Hawaii, whereas the above photo looks more generic.
Here’s another sunset photo that we took in Ko Olina. Notice that the lava rocks and shrubs add interest to the photo.
For one more example, here’s a photo we took on Hawaii, the Big Island. The tiki torches help connect the scene to Hawaii.
We hope these tricks have give you some ideas to capture even better sunset photos and memories.
Here are some more articles that will help you with your Hawaii photography:
Sheila Beal
1 comment
I use my polarized sunglasses as a filter. Put the glasses lens in front your phone camera lens . Works great.