I did something I rarely do… I stayed in one place and didn’t move for an entire sunset on Thursday night. In full disclosure, I did walk around for about 45 minutes before I picked my spot – but once I chose it, I stuck with it for another 45 minutes. This was a little exercise for me. Usually, I’ll scout a number of spots in a given area and then move throughout them during the course of sunset and twilight.

Often when I’m shooting landscapes some impatience creeps in. I’ll continue to scout and search out compositions as the light gets better constantly thinking that what I’ve found isn’t good enough and that something great is just around the next corner. This leads to a feeling like I’m often “out of position” or I’ve missed the shot that would have been better somewhere else that I found earlier.

One of the things I need to continue to work on as a photographer is my patience… and continuing to trust myself and my compositions. Sometimes it’s best to stick with an idea and make a commitment!

Which photograph do you like better? The sunset or the twilight? I’d appreciate your thoughts in the comments below. There’s also two easily identifiable difference between these two photographs. Would love to know what you think about them as well.

One little technical tidbit – in both of these I used a 2 stop soft graduated neutral density filter… but held it from right to left instead of up and down.