Sunset photos

I often get asked if I can shoot a west-facing property just as the sun is going down. The view looks great to the naked eye, but the camera doesn't have the same dynamic range as our eyes, so photos shot directly into the sun will be nothing but blown out highlights and dark black shadows. The best time to shoot a west-facing view is in the morning with the sun behind you. Then you'll get a perfect blue sky, and lots of light shining directly onto your subjects. The other option is to wait until the sun sets, and you'll have a window of magic time when there's still a little bit of light in the sky and the lights come on in the buildings. I'll post some samples of the latter in a future post, but in the meantime here's a few shots of a west facing False Creek penthouse that I had to shoot at 6 pm the other day for Elizabeth McQueen. Fortunately I was able to point the camera south, and avoid the harsh glare of the evening sun. Even then I had to use every light in my bag, as well as some significant post processing work in Photoshop to get the interior and the view exposed properly.