Photographing Angkor: Light, Angles and the Shots Everyone Misses

The southern pool. Everyone lines the northern reflecting pool because that is where the first tour bus stopped in about 1995 and it has been self-reinforcing ever since. The southern pool gives you the same five towers, the same reflection, and a fraction of the people. Walk on. Guides know and will take you if you ask.

The colour comes before the sun. Angkor Wat admits from 05:00 and the sky is at its best in the twenty minutes before the disc appears, which is roughly 05:40 to 06:20 depending on the month. People who arrive for sunrise at six have missed it. Leave town at 04:30.

The reason any of this works is structural: Angkor Wat faces west, alone among the great Khmer temples, so at dawn you stand on the west causeway looking east and the towers silhouette against the colour. No other temple here gives you that.

Two honest warnings. The pools can be low or drained in the dry months and during maintenance - no water, no reflection. And the rains are underrated: a sky with structure in it produces far better colour than an empty blue one, and the pool edge is emptier.

The equinoxes, around 21 March and 23 September, are when the sun rises directly over the central tower. Those two mornings are the most crowded of the year at that pool by a wide margin.

06:30 is the single most valuable half-hour at Angkor and almost nobody uses it. The sunrise crowd leaves for breakfast together, in a body, and the temple empties. Go in while they go out and you have the outer gallery, the courtyards and the upper level close to yourself. Clean architectural shots with no people in them are available for about thirty minutes and at no other time of day.

Angkor Thom, 08:00 to 09:30. The Bayon's faces take side light well and the towers are a maze of foreground and background - shoot through doorways and between towers rather than standing back. The outer gallery bas-reliefs are in shade and need a steady hand or a high ISO.

Midday: stop. Overhead sun on grey sandstone is the worst light there is, and from March to May it is also dangerous. This is pool time.

15:00 to 17:00, Ta Prohm. Late, when the queue has gone.

Sunset: Pre Rup, not Phnom Bakheng. Pre Rup is warm laterite that goes properly orange, with a view over forest and no cap on numbers. Phnom Bakheng caps how many people are allowed up and queues from mid-afternoon.

Blue hour after sunset at Angkor Wat's moat, from the causeway, is a shot very few people stay for.

Ta Prohm is the hardest exposure at Angkor and the most misunderstood.

The galleries are deep shade and the courtyards are blazing. On a bright day the dynamic range is beyond what any sensor handles gracefully, and you get either black roots or a white sky.

Overcast is the best light here by a wide margin, and rainy-season afternoons are ideal. Wet stone also saturates - the moss goes green and the sandstone goes warm. Photographers who know the site come in the rains for exactly this.

Shoot the roots small, not big. The instinct is to frame the whole famous fig, which flattens it. Get close to where root meets stone, where you can see the wood actually deforming the masonry.

Put a person in it for scale. Ta Prohm's proportions do not read without one.

The Tomb Raider tree has a queue from 09:00 to 11:00 and is not the best tree there. Walk twenty metres.

Preah Khan on the grand circuit gives you the same trees-through-galleries with a tenth of the people and long corridors that frame beautifully - see Ta Prohm vs Preah Khan.

Tripods. Small ones are generally tolerated outside; large ones and anything that looks like a commercial set-up will be challenged, and there are areas where they are not allowed. A monopod or a beanbag is the practical answer for the dark galleries.

Drones are prohibited over the Angkor park without written authorisation from the APSARA Authority. This is enforced and equipment has been confiscated. Do not take the risk for a clip.

Commercial and pre-wedding shoots need a permit from APSARA, and the distinction between a tourist with a big camera and a paid shoot is made by the guards on the day. If you are being paid, get the permit.

Lenses. A wide - 16-35 equivalent - does most of the work; the temples are close-quarters. Something longer, 70-200, is what gets you the face details on the Bayon and compresses the tower groups at Angkor Wat.

Dust and humidity are real. The dry season is dusty enough to matter for lens changes and the wet season fogs glass when you come out of air conditioning - let the camera acclimatise before you shoot.

Monks. Ask before photographing, every time, and accept no. Women should not hand anything directly to a monk.

Dress code applies to you too - shoulders and knees covered at Angkor Wat's upper level, where some of the best light is.