Golden hour photography
With the sun below the horizon, there was still plenty of light in the sky for a great photograph out in White Sands National Monument, New Mexico.
For soft light, wonderful colors and fewer folks shooting during the golden hours of the day yields awesome rewards.
I love to shoot an hour before and after both sunrise and sunset. These are far and away my favorite times of the day for landscape photography. (Also great for portraits)
The sun was super low in the sky and turned this cloud a wonderful pink as it hovered over Canyonlands National Park in Utah.
Oftentimes, at dawn you’ll have the area you want to photograph all to yourself, and depending on the location, same at sunset. But I’ve found if the spot is an easy drive up and a short walk, you might have some competition - especially in the national parks. For both of these photos I had to walk a half mile to a mile and there was no one else around.
You will definitely want to carry a tripod with you for shooting in the low light times of day. Of course, you can up the ISO (or use a rock like I did for the photo of Canyonlands) or rely on image stabilizing but a tripod is worth the weight and effort.
A few filters like a polarizer or graduated neutral density filter are also easy to put in a pocket and will improve photos immensely. Try getting out early in the day to your favorite outdoor location to see what you can find to photograph.
Happy shooting!!