Easter Sunday is one of the most colourful days of the year with brightly coloured eggs sequestered amongst the spring garden blossoms. The Maldives tends to have more of a tricolour motif – blue, green, white. Until sunset. Then the Maldives explodes with a kaleidoscope of colour.
The sunset is a big event in the Maldives. All the men (it is the gadget guys) abandon their loved ones to their cocktails and grab their SLRs to start shooting. As a result, Instagram and Flickr are awash with an ocean of sunset snaps.
The criteria I use to filter the ordinary from the extraordinary is the following…
- Colour – Rich, deep, gradient, varied. No black (the sunset equivalent to the “No Sunglasses” Rule). And *multiple* colours…not just a wash of golds. A bit of Photoshop to accent the highlights is okay as long as the image is not saturated like some kids colouring book.
- Light Play – Not just a glowing orb in the distance, the sun must certainly ignite the clouds in the sky. Also (more frequent oversight) is that the ocean seascape must also be alight with reflected and refracted colours.
- Maldivian – No “CBA” (ie. “Could Be Anywhere). The shot needs to have some distinctive iconic Maldives bits like a dhoni or sand bar or water villa to give it a destination signature.
Here are a dozen eggs-eptional shots (especially check out Abdulla Didi (#2) who is a bit of a Maldivian sunset specialist)…
- Extremely Pierre – W Retreat [ ABOVE]
- Abdulla Didi – Hithadhoo
- Luca Aug – Angaga
- Infinite Explorer – Anantara Dhigu
- Kandolhu – Kandolhu
- Conrad Rangali – Conrad Rangali
- Shestak Konstantin – Sun Island
- Camila Asenjo – Drift Thelu
- Hussain Zaheen – Dhigurah
- Pun Photos – Fihalhohi
- Rid Perspectives – LUX South Ari Atoll
- Travellers Planet – Six Senses Laamu
