In actual life there is no question, like a solar panel I need the rays of the sun to energize me everyday. In my images it is a different story. Having the sun in the frame will burn out the red channel on a digital sensor and leave an ugly yellow brownish/greenish halo around the sun. To my eyes this looks even worse on print than on screen. Film or transparencies have a much nicer gentler curve so they cope much better with the sun in the frame, but digital is unforgiving.

This does mean I delete images that otherwise are quite nice, but have a small burned out area from the sun. As I just started developing RAW files from Namibia, I ran into two of these images. So now I am asking you dear reader, what do you think of having the sun in the frame? Do you like it? Does it distract you? Do you dislike it? And photographers; what do you do to make images like these work – or do you delete them as I do?

As examples I present two sunset images from driving 6 hours through the Namibian desert, from the capital of Windhoek to Swakopmund on the coast. A most special day with beautiful cloud cover (very rare) and 30 seconds of rain in the afternoon (very rare!).

My Namibian friends tell me it was a day that happens once in 10 years. I am amazed by the big reflection of the sun in the grass. But, both images also have burned out sun, so please let me know if you think they work as I am not so sure.