On the Sunday of our photo tour in Siem Reap, we went to Srah Srang to take sunrise photos.

It is easily my favorite part of the trip!

I loved arriving early in the morning, just as the the pretty colors of the blue hour are showing, watching residents of the area go about their early morning chores (and snapping photos as they did…), and taking in the beautiful reflections of the gorgeous sky on the waters of Srah Srang.

On our second day of our photo tour in Siem Reap, our group met up at 4:30 in the morning to get the prime spots for taking sunrise photos in Angkor Wat.

We were the first ones there (at 4:45 am)!

That morning was very cloudy and overcast but there was a fleeting moment when the clouds parted a bit to give us beautiful light.

I‘m not really a morning person but wanted to take sunrise photos this summer. So early this summer, my friend Prab and I tried several times to go. These photos were taken on our third try :)

Last Saturday Bart and I attended a workshop on HDR. We went to North Avenue Beach at 4:00 a.m. to try to catch some sunrise photos. The light that morning was pretty flat and the sky uninteresting. :(

The lake was very still though and the reflections of the skyline and Lake Shore Drive is pretty.

I used Photomatix to produce the HDR and Photoshop CS4 to apply sharpening, etc.