If you want to take great photos, you have to get up early. The best photos are taken before sunrise. And that means not only getting to your spot in time, but getting set up, taking light readings, and being ready when the sun approaches the horizon. You also need to be hyper-aware of climatic conditions --- clear skies rarely yield interesting photos. And sometimes, the perfect shot passes in an instant.

Two masters of sunrise/sunset photography are the late great Galen Rowell and San Francisco Chronicle photographer Frederic Larson. Rowell's book, Mountain Light: In Search of the Dynamic Landscape, was an epiphany for me.

Frederic Larson has a new book out of his amazing San Francisco photos: Mystical San Francisco. Larson's specialities are sun, moon and fog, captured against a San Francisco backdrop. The book is annotated with production notes on where the photos were taken, and the lenses and settings used (warning: sure to stir up a little lens-envy). If I could successfully shoot just one Fred Larson-esque photo, I could die happy.

If there's one thing I learned from Rowell's and Larson's work, it's planning, planning and more planning. This includes knowing the phases of the moon and tides as well as where the moon/sun will rise/set based on your position. To start, get to know the moon:

CURRENT MOON moon phases