Early Morning and Late in the Day?

[nicshow]

I'm still gaining great appreciation for the quality of light early in the morning and late in the day. I had never understood, however, the mention of the hour BEFORE and after sunrise and the hour before and AFTER sunset.

Yesterday, it was very cloudy and prematurely growing dark. I took some shots of some images I had to shoot then or never. Despite what appeared to my eyes to be bad light, I shot the images. The exposures were a second or two but the images turned out well (much lighter than it appeared to my eyes).

Is this the idea of the hour after sunset - making use of the available light for even lighting on subjects? I understand in my head about 18% gray...I've just never really though about shooting in lighting that doesn't "look" good to my eyes.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

Nic

[In2Photos]

I believe the hour after sunset is a good time to shoot certain types of landscape shots, especially cityscapes and silhouettes. The typical blue sky gradient looks great with a contrast of buildings, bridges, and light trails. But with after sunset shots you might need really long shutter speed for foreground objects to be exposed enough to show detail. This is where I would shoot those in either HDR or before sunset.