I’m a certified freak for sunrise. I love it. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy sunsets too. But given the choice, sunrise will always win as my favorite time of day.

On every photo shoot—whether it’s a golf course, a landscape, or something in between—you’ll find me in place at least an hour before the sun breaks the horizon. Sometimes it’s cold. Sometimes it’s raining. But for me, it’s always magical. To me, sunrise feels like God’s “good morning.” It’s always a surprise, no matter what the forecast says. A prediction of 90% cloud cover can suddenly transform into the most astonishing blue hour, with brilliant reds, magentas, oranges, and yellows filling the sky. Or it can stay stubbornly gray. Either way, I live by my first rule of photography: always show up.

Each year, I’m in position to photograph the sunrise somewhere between 75 and 100 times. And every single one is a mystery waiting to reveal itself. I’ve stood in the middle of a tropical downpour on Maui and come away with nothing but soaked clothes. I’ve battled stubborn fog on my lenses after pulling cameras from a cool, dry hotel room into the thick, steamy humidity of coastal South Carolina. And I’ve also been gifted with some of the most beautiful moments I could ever hope to witness as the day slowly comes alive.

Sometimes the early morning provides only a few fleeting seconds of magic to capture. Other times, it puts on an unforgettable show. One morning in 2012, while photographing The Floridian National Golf Club, the sky stayed on fire with brilliant color for nearly 45 minutes and then went completely gray. I managed to photograph five different holes during that single sunrise.

The only morning that has rivaled it so far was June 1st, 2017, while shooting East Lake Golf Club from my favorite sunrise location—across the water, across the island green (once the 6th hole, now the 15th), straight into the rising sun. I edited more than 30 images that morning alone. For a small taste of what sunrise truly means to me, you can watch a short video from that East Lake morning here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c__w6X3WKz8. It’s the best explanation I know how to give for why I love sunrise so deeply.

Probably the most widely published sunrise image I’ve ever created was captured from behind the new 18th green on McLemore’s Highlands Course shortly after the Rees Jones/Bill Bergin renovation of the Rick Robbins design formerly known as Canyon Ridge Golf Club. That image has traveled around the world as McLemore’s reputation as a premier golf destination has grown.

If you’d like to experience more of what I feel in the presence of God’s daily wake-up call, I invite you to visit my Sunrise–Sunset Collection—a curated gallery of nearly 160 sunrises captured over the past 16 years.

Because every day deserves a beautiful beginning.