Can you tell a sunrise from a sunset just by the photo?
Asked 9/1/2012
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Is there any reliable way to distinguish a sunrise from a sunset from the image alone, without any outside context such as capture time, location, compass direction, or metadata? I’m asking about a normal still photo rather than obvious clues like very long exposures or known landmarks.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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I think if you look through pictures you'll find quite a bit of difference, but I suspect much of it is illusory. Specifically, you'll almost certainly find more pictures of really spectacular sunsets than sunrises.
I'm not at all convinced that this is because an average sunset is more spectacular though -- it's a simple matter of the number of pictures taken. Far fewer people are awake and taking pictures at sunrise. Given a larger pool from which to select, the pictures we see of sunsets are naturally better.
That's not, however, to say there can't be any difference at all though. Most of the physical reasons (I can think of) probably do favor sunsets as well. During the day, the sun is heating the air and the ground. This leads to air movement that tends to pick up particulates (e.g., dust, smoke, etc.) and keep it in the air. It also leads to water evaporating (relatively) quickly from anything like lakes and rivers in the area. In addition, quite a few things that people do (e.g., driving) tends to happen primarily during the day, so it "pushes" more pollution into the air during the day. Thus, at the end of the day, the light is shining through air that carries more particles, which almost inevitably does more to diffuse the light.
During the night, there's a lot less pollution being put into the air, and the lack of heating means the air tends to be calmer as well, so by morning many of those particulates will have simply fallen out of the air, and the humidity either formed into clouds or precipitated. The clearer air does less to diffuse the light, so the sunrise isn't as spectacular.
Although I can't provide any scientific support for it, my first guess would be that the selection bias is probably the largest factor though. Sunset pictures we see are likely to be more colorful, simply because we catch/see a lot more of them, and are a lot more likely to just throw one out if it isn't really spectacular.
Bottom line: yes, you can probably guess, and you'll probably be right a little more often than you're wrong -- but unless you recognize the terrain or something like that, it's essentially impossible to know with any real certainty.
Originally by user603. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user603
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Usually, no—not reliably from the image alone. A single still photo generally doesn’t contain enough information to prove whether the sun is rising or setting if you remove all context.
That said, people sometimes notice tendencies rather than rules. Community answers suggest sunsets often appear more dramatic, with a broader spread of light and deeper color. A plausible reason is that, later in the day, heating and air movement can leave more particulates or haze in the atmosphere, which may enhance warm tones and scattering. Sunrises can sometimes look cleaner or less intense.
But these are only tendencies, not dependable identifiers. Weather, humidity, pollution, clouds, white balance, exposure, editing, and local conditions can make a sunrise look like a sunset and vice versa. There’s also a selection bias: far more people photograph sunsets, so the sunsets you see are often the most striking examples.
So the practical answer is: without external clues, you usually cannot tell for certain.
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