The following photos were all taken in the golden hour after sunrise – a first for me in my photography life. I’ve known for a long time that sunrise is a popular time of day with landscape photographers but those early mornings just never appealed. That, and the fact that I can never work out where a good spot to watch a sunrise would be. That was until two weeks ago when I received a phone call from my husband telling me how beautiful the light was outside and how I should get out of bed and go out with my camera. So, I swung my legs out of bed, walked downstairs, grabbed my camera bag and headed for the fields near my house. My husband was not wrong – the light was magical.

After this morning of photographing the trees in the field, I knew I wanted to get out at the same time of day some day soon. Having looked at the weather forecast, I chose another day that week to go out again. I went to the coast, despite knowing this is not where the sun rises. However, when driving through one place to get to another, I could see low mist in the direction of the estuary and the sun casting its golden glow on the mountains in the distance. I walked through the sand dunes to get to the spot of one of my favourite compositions which features the visitor centre. I was not disappointed with the view. The mist and haze provided gorgeous atmosphere and I love how the layers of mountains subtly show themselves. While strictly not inland, this photo is not of the sea and therefore, I do not consider it a seascape (my usual go to sub-genre of landscape photography). I absolutely love this image and feel it gives off very ‘American West’ vibes.

While I got a great image at the coast, I knew I needed to be inland and in the hills for sunrise so later that week that’s what I tried to do. I parked the car and started walking along a road, not really knowing where I was going to end up. To be honest, I still don’t really know where I was but I did stumble upon this bridge, which I thought made a good subject. The sky was not clear this day and I was slightly disheartened by the lack of magical light. However, the lack of magical light gives these images a cold, autumnal look that feels quite atmospheric. As you can see in the last image, the sun did poke through the clouds for a brief moment. These images are so different to what I normally photograph but I love them and am looking forward to trying some more mountain/inland landscapes in future.

I discovered on these three mornings, that sunrise is an absolutely magical time of day and definitely worth getting out of bed for. I can see why landscape photographers set ridiculous alarms and I think I might be joining them. Thankfully, though, I can ease myself in as we’re entering the winter months and sunrises are much later at this time of year!