Travel Photography Tips: Master Sunset Photos with Natural Light

Sunset is my favorite time of the day to take travel and landscape photos regardless of what city or country I’m in. Over the years, I have experimented with ways to capture beautiful sunsets in different outdoor locations like beaches, mountains, and the city. 

As a photographer who prefers to travel lightly, my goal has always been to capture vibrant and cinematic images without having to carry too much equipment, and relying only on natural light.

In this blog post, I’ll be sharing some tips that I implement in my travel photography to master capturing sunset photos out in the wild with minimal camera equipment.

Travel Camera Gear & Equipment

If you like long exposure photos with your sunset travel photos, then you’ll benefit from either a tripod or putting your camera on a stable surface that will allow you to use a slow shutter speed. Additionally, you might want to invest in an ND filter because the light from the sun might cause unwanted overexposure in your photo without it.

I generally don’t use long exposures for sunset photography because I like to be able to move around freely and at my own speed since the sun can set very quickly. When I take sunset photos at the beach, I like to catch the movement of the water with a fairly fast shutter speed. Sometimes this is to capture the crashing waves highlighted with the orange glow from the sun, or to capture a silhouette of someone walking by without their movement being blurred.

Add A Subject To Your Travel Photo

There are plenty of times when I want to capture just a photo of the sky when the sun sets over the horizon. But another tip to enhance your sunset photography is to add a subject (or subjects) into the travel photo to tell more of a story, rather than a typical landscape photo.

If you’re at the beach, you can capture someone surfing or standing on the edge of a rock bluff. You can use the golden tones of the sunset to create a silhouette of the subject in the frame, but also diversify your image with movement. (This is also a trick I use in street photography at night).

Discover & Create Pockets of Light

Personally, I enjoy taking photos of landscapes during sunset when there are some clouds in the sky. Not only can the clouds diffuse the strong light from the sun, but they can also create pockets of light that peek through the clouds.

If the sky is clear of any clouds, you can still create pockets of light by using subjects in the frame. In the photos below, I used surrounding buildings to create small pockets of lights rather than shooting directly at the sun for street photography. I also used the beam poles under the Santa Monica Pier to create a pocket of light for a nice sunset beach photo where I can photograph the sun directly but not have the light overpower the entire photo.

Experiment with Different Compositions

Regardless of where you take sunset photos, you should try and experiment with different compositions in your photos. Don’t just focus on capturing the sun setting over the horizon in the sky, but also see how it affects the environment you’re in (like surrounding buildings, trees, crosswalks, the ocean, etc.)

I took the photo below on the rooftop at The Garden at 120 in London back in December 2022. Even though you can barely see the sky in the photo, you can see the effect of the sunset and how the light spills onto the right side of the buildings, leaving a subtle shadow on the left.

For me, sunset photos aren’t just about capturing the sun itself, but also the effect of the sunset in your surroundings.

Avoid Over-Saturating Colors in Editing

You might be inclined to really increase the warmth and saturation of your sunset photos because you want to show off the brilliant golden tones in the photo. Sunsets can already produce strong warm colors so there might not be a need to saturate them further in editing.

I use Adobe Lightroom Classic to edit my photos and although it varies depending on the photo, I usually increase the vibrance and then slightly alter the saturation (increasing it or decreasing it) by small increments until I’m happy with the final look.

Final Thoughts

I always try to check a weather app to see the approximate time to expect sunset and I try to show up to the location about an hour beforehand and usually stay until blue hour or night. Sometimes you might find an amazing sunset when you don’t expect it, so it’s important to try and go out regardless of whether or not you think you’ll capture the best sunset.

Even though my favorite time to shoot travel photos is during golden hour, it’s important to try and shoot at different times of the day and not just limit yourself to a few hours of the day to shoot.

If you’re new to sunset photography or just looking to find some additional tips on how to capture golden hour, I hope you found this post helpful.

Thanks for reading and until next time.

Feel free to explore my website with travel photography further:

Relaxing Sunset Street Photography In Tokyo Japan

The Griffith Observatory Los Angeles: Sunset Travel Destination Highlight

Golden Hour Street Photography in Berlin Germany

Relaxing Sunset Street Photography in London

For outdoor lifestyle photoshoots, you can see some behind-the-scenes blog posts:

Outdoor Lifestyle Product Photography for Watch Brands

Luxury Watch Outdoor Lifestyle Photoshoot at Venice Beach, Los Angeles

Sunset City Lifestyle Photoshoot in Downtown Los Angeles

Creative Commercial Beach Campaign Photography in Santa Monica