How to photograph stunning sunsets in Hong Kong this summer – the camera settings you need for the best effects, and eight of the best places to shoot
- Hong Kong photographers will gather this summer at panoramic viewpoints to capture the kaleidoscope of colour at the day’s end
- Tim Pile shares some tips on how to get postcard perfect pictures at eight of the city’s most scenic locations
As steamy summer temperatures put an end to another busy hiking season, Hongkongers, with few options to escape the city because of coronavirus restrictions, have been forced to curtail their favourite outdoor activity or adapt. Bright-eyed early birds opt for short canopied trails at dawn and are done and dusted before 9am, while others lace up their boots and head out in the relative cool of late afternoon.
Lugging their trusty tripods, members of the latter group include the sunset photographers who gather at panoramic viewpoints to capture the kaleidoscope of colour at the day’s end. Here are eight of these scenic locales.
None require a long hike – each image was taken in either an urban location or a short distance from a bus stop or MTR station.
1. Causeway Bay
Causeway Bay draws an eclectic evening group. Serious photographers fiddling with shutter speeds and F stops make room for camera club newbies (plus instructors), and a smattering of smartphone snappers who happen to be passing. Cloud formations are more dramatic during the summer months and the sun dips downwards in a ball of fire that illuminates boats bobbing in the typhoon shelter. Minutes later, most of the photographers fold up their tripods, pack away their neutral density filters and head home.
2. Aberdeen
They’re missing a trick by not hanging around, though. Twenty minutes after the streaks of crimson, tangerine and gold have dissolved, blazing office and residential towers light up to produce another explosion of colour.
Here’s an example of this “second sunset”, taken at Brick Hill (a 30-minute walk from Wong Chuk Hang MTR station) on a stormy day in May.
3. Tsing Ma Bridge
I was the last photographer standing when I took this long exposure of Tsing Ma Bridge from a catchwater near the Tsing Yi nature trail. The only problem with staying on long after the sun has gone down is that footpaths don’t look the same in the dark.