Making a brief shift away from the California coast, I found myself wide awake at 5:00 a.m. on my first morning in Prague. Part of me groaned at the jet lag, but the photographer side of me was thankful for the early awakening so that I could put into practice my two main rules for travel photography. What are those rules you may ask?

The first rule of travel photography that I like to follow is: photograph cities just as the sun is coming up. Why is this? Well, the lighting is absolutely spectacular. Before the sun crests the horizon, the light is strongly blue in tone. They call this the blue hour, but it is more like the blue 15 minutes. The blue hour if quickly followed by the first warm rays of sun. Here, the hues are heavy in oranges and yellows. These more extreme color moments may be short in duration, but they are so much more subtle than the lighting of the midday sun.

The second rule of travel photography that I try to adhere to is the 48 hour rule. Scenes and color palettes are most noticeable to us in the first two days of change. In other words, when you go from one type of environment to another, one’s eye is keen to the differences. However, after about 48 hours, our minds begin to treat it as normal and one looses the “fresh eye” effect. So shoot early and often in your first days in a new city.

With the assist from jet lag and a messed up body clock, I had the advantage of hitting the streets of Prague before the crowds did and while the dawn’s light displayed its gorgeous show on the water and walls of this impressive city. The more I strolled, the more details stood out, beaconing me to raise my camera and capture the moment.

Prague did not disappoint. It is a gorgeous city steeped in history, religion, architecture and art. With a first morning start like I enjoyed, I knew the next days were going to be something special. The next step was to explore the Jewish Quarter and Old Town. Stay tuned and we’ll find out how those went!