Steve Bruno Photo

Incorporating the sun into a landscape photo can present many undesirable effects, unless you have the right conditions.  It usually comes down to having the right clouds.  If that isn’t happening, you can use a foreground element to partially block the sun.  In the case of the photo above, there was a heavy overcast sky which just allowed enough of the sun to come through over Valley Of Fire State Park, Nevada.  This is my submission to Leanne Cole’s Monochrome Madness this week.  This is also my post for this week’s Daily Post Challenge: Variations on a theme.

Another shot from Valley Of Fire that includes the sun was this one through an arch.  There was another small opening in the rock, and I positioned myself to a spot where the sun was just catching the edge of the rock.  This was a matter of inches in either direction for getting the sunburst I wanted, or getting full blown sun flare.

With decent optics, and just a little bit of time in editing, there are times you don’t need anything to filter the sun out at all.

Sometimes, I’ve gotten lucky, and the perfect cloud has moved into place.  This photo from the Grand Canyon was one of those moments.  The cloud was just large enough to block the sun for about 10 seconds – all I needed.

Of course, there was nothing like the film days, and being able to stop down to f/64 or f/90 with a large format lens.  I think there might have been a little humidity in the air to help this one, too.