Planning

Learning goal

Before going to a landscape, you will be able to predict from which direction the sun will rise and toward which direction it will set that day, what phase the moon is in and when it will rise, and whether the clouds will let the light through. You will read the direction lines that sun and moon apps draw on a map, express a direction as an azimuth angle, and in the weather forecast look not only at the total cloud cover but at what height the clouds are. You will tell apart what the apps know and what they don't, and take into account that a hilly horizon can hide the sun before the calendar time. If there will be a person in the frame, you will know in advance whether the sun at that hour will fall on their face, their side or behind them, and plan for their skin to appear in its own color or for a conscious silhouette.

The question

For weeks your friend hasn't been able to get out of their mind the mountain rising on the far shore of the lake outside the city. They imagine a frame in which the full moon rises from the mountain's shoulder and shines on the lake's surface. Last Saturday, when they drove an hour and reached the shore, the moon had already risen to the middle of the sky and was in exactly the opposite direction from the mountain. The weekend before that, the sky had closed over with a thick cloud cover and the sun never appeared. Two trips, two empty returns. This time they want to be sure before setting out. How do you know the light in advance?

Context

In the golden hour lesson you learned that as the sun nears the horizon the light warms and softens, and that the length of these hours changes with place and season (Lesson 5.4). In your first look at landscape you met walking a place in advance and noting the foregrounds and the direction of the sun before photographing it (Lesson 16.2). In the capstone project, too, you prepared a table in which you noted each location's light hour by hour (Lesson 30.2).

In those projects you mostly learned the light by going there and seeing it. In landscape this isn't always possible: the place may be far away, the light you want may come only a few days a year, a trip can take a whole day. Fortunately, the movement of the sun and the moon can be calculated; for centuries astronomers have predicted this movement to the minute. The weather is more fickle, but it can be forecast. This lesson takes up reading these three things, the sun, the moon and the clouds, before you reach the shore.

Simple explanation

Where will the sun rise today?

A sun path is the arc the sun draws across the sky during a day, from sunrise to sunset. It is a common belief that the sun rises exactly in the east and sets exactly in the west, but this is only roughly true around the spring and autumn equinoxes. In the northern hemisphere, where Türkiye lies, the sun rises in summer from a point shifted toward the northeast and sets toward the northwest; in winter it rises in the southeast, sets in the southwest and draws a lower arc across the sky. That is why at an hour when light falls on a valley in summer, shadow may fall in winter.

Sun and moon apps show, with lines starting from your point on a map, from which direction the sun will rise and toward which direction it will set that day, along with the times. By moving the date forward you can follow how the sun shifts over the weeks. But most of these apps give times relative to a flat horizon. If the sun sets behind a mountain to the west, the light leaves the valley before the calendar sunset time. The app knows the sky; the mountain in front of you, on the other hand, often has to be taken into account by you, by looking at the map.

How is a direction stated?

An azimuth is the angle of a direction measured clockwise starting from north. North is zero degrees, east ninety, south one hundred eighty, west two hundred seventy degrees. Instead of saying "the sun sets toward the west," saying "the sun sets today at two hundred ninety-five degrees" lets you really know whether the mountain's shoulder falls on that line. The apps give the rising and setting directions of the sun and the moon in this angle.

To find the same angle in the field, a compass or the phone's compass is enough. From the point where you stand on the shore you look at the mountain's shoulder and read its angle; if the same angle matches the rising direction of the sun or the moon, the two things fall on the same line. Phone compasses can be affected by nearby metal objects and by the car, so it is good to step a few paces away when reading and compare with the direction on the map. An azimuth is also the shortest way to find a place again and to pass a note on to someone else.

What do the moon and the clouds say?

A moon phase is how much of the moon's sunlit face can be seen from Earth. At full moon the moon stands opposite the sun; that is why it rises from a direction near the east as the sun sets, and stays in the sky all night. The moon rises on average about fifty minutes later each day than the day before. A day before full moon, the moon can rise a little before the sun sets; while there is still light in the sky, the difference in brightness between the landscape and the moon shrinks and both can stay detailed in the same frame.

A cloud layer is the classification of clouds as low, middle and high according to their height above the ground. Many weather forecasts show not only the total cloud cover but these layers separately. If there is thick low cloud on the horizon, the sun can disappear before reaching the horizon. Thin high clouds, on the other hand, can be lit from below and take on color after the sun has set. Fog often forms in valleys and by water on the morning after a clear, windless and humid night. A forecast is more reliable for the coming days than for distant ones; a few days ahead is read as a probability.

Visual evidence

This time, before leaving home, your friend opens the app. They put a pin on the point on the shore and move the date forward. At next month's full moon the moon will rise twenty minutes before the sun sets; but the rising line doesn't pass exactly over the mountain's shoulder, a little to its right. On the map they slide the pin a few hundred meters along the shore; the line settles onto the mountain's shoulder.

They look at the weather forecast: the total cloud cover looks high, but when split into layers almost all the clouds are high and thin, the horizon clear. They set out. At the new point on the shore they read the mountain's shoulder with the phone's compass; the angle matches the app's.

While the sun, from behind, leaves a low, warm light on the lake's far shore, the moon rises from the mountain's shoulder. The high clouds turn pink. The hiking companion standing on the shore, a young dark-skinned man, has the sun to his side, so his face and skin look their own warm color. The same frame, had the sun struck from in front, would have turned him into a silhouette; this time your friend knew in advance what would happen.

Common mistakes

Summary

Knowing the light in advance rests on reading the sun's path, which shifts with the season, and its rising and setting directions through the azimuth angle, looking at the moon's phase and rising time, and assessing the cloud layers separately in the weather forecast. Apps calculate the movement of the sky, but taking into account the mountain in front of you and the fickleness of the weather is up to you; if there is a person in the frame, whether the sun at that hour will fall on their face, their side or behind them is also planned in advance.

Mini assignment

In this assignment you will plan in advance a landscape you haven't been to.

1. Choose a hill, a lake or an open area near you and put a pin on that point in a sun and moon app.
2. Within the next two weeks, find a day when the rising or setting line of the sun or the moon lines up with a hill, a tree or a structure, and write down the azimuth angle and the time.
3. Look at the cloud layers in that day's weather forecast, choose a backup day if needed, then go and shoot; if there will be a person in the frame, note in advance from which side the sun will fall on them.

Check yourself

• Did the angle the app predicted match the angle you read in the field?
• Did the light end before the calendar time, or after?
• Did the face and skin of the person in the frame look as you planned?

Glossary

Mini quiz

1. In the northern hemisphere, from which direction does the sun rise in summer?

• A) Exactly from the south
• B) From a point shifted toward the northeast
• C) Exactly from the west
• D) Exactly from the east every day

2. In the azimuth angle, how many degrees is east?

• A) Zero
• B) One hundred eighty
• C) Ninety
• D) Two hundred seventy

3. What happens if there is a mountain to the west?

• A) The sun disappears before the calendar sunset time
• B) The sun sets later
• C) The sunset time doesn't change and the light stays the same
• D) The moon doesn't rise

4. Why are cloud layers looked at separately in the weather forecast?

• A) Because the total cover is always zero
• B) Because the layers give the exact time of fog
• C) Because low cloud stops the wind
• D) Because thick low cloud on the horizon and thin high cloud can give the same total cover

Answers

1. B — In the northern hemisphere in summer, the sun's rising point shifts from the east toward the north.
2. C — Azimuth is measured clockwise from north, and east stands at ninety degrees.
3. A — Apps often calculate for a flat horizon; the mountain's shadow cuts the light earlier.
4. D — Thick low cloud hides the sun while thin high cloud can take on color; the total number doesn't show this difference.

Summary card

• The sun shifts with the season: northeast and northwest in summer, southeast and southwest in winter.
• State the direction as an azimuth; confirm it with a compass in the field.
• The full moon rises at sunset; the day before is more balanced in twilight.
• In the forecast, read not the total cloud but its layers.
• The app doesn't know the mountain; check the horizon on the map, plan where the sun will fall on the person in the frame.

Bridge to the next lesson

When your friend opens the full-moon frame on the screen, the moon and the mountain are as they wanted, but the lower half of the frame holds only a flat, dark lake surface. On the shore, right at their feet, there was a big mossy rock; they never took that rock into the frame. What is that rock doing in the landscape? The next lesson takes up a low angle that brings the camera close to the ground and a wide-angle lens that enlarges a close element and opens up the distance.