Doing a sunrise session requires more planning than just waking up early. After doing this sunrise photoshoot at Lake Washington from Seward park, I feel qualified to give you pointers. Here are my top tips to make your sunrise portrait session a smooth experience
Make sure your location is open
If it’s a park, it might not be. My advice for figuring this out is to go down there yourself or use Google Street view and look for gates. In my experience, there’s often a gate blocking the parking lot, but not access to the park. In this case you’ll need to have another location to park and plan extra time to walk to your shooting location. Sometimes the gate will tell you the times it opens and closes, but often these gates are managed by the Parks Department which is often understaffed. In the instance of these photos, the gate said it would open at 4:30 AM, but wasn’t open when we got there at six. So always have a backup.
Consider the safety of your location
Some parks are perfectly fine during the day, but sketchy in the dark. Just always be aware of your surroundings and tell someone of your location and when you’ll be done.
How early should you get there for sunrise session?
If there are NOT any buildings or mountains in the way of the sunrise, I recommend you start shooting 30 minutes before sunrise. If there are large things blocking the sun, you’ll have to start later, but I can’t give you an exact time without going there myself first.
You may need to get there earlier if you need to walk far from your parking spot or if you have a lot of props.
You'll need to consider the weather as well. If it's cloudy, it might be dark until an hour after the sunrise. Partly cloudy/ sunny are the best conditions for a sunrise session.
Bring Layers
It’s often colder in the morning but can warm up quickly. Layers is the way to go
If you’re fully prepared, sunrise sessions can be magical. If you’d like to know what we brought to this Lake Washington session you can find it here:
