For the travelers coming to Cambodia, they all want to come to visit the well-known Angkor Temples, mostly located in Siem Reap such as Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom with Bayon Temple, Taprohm – the Jungle Temple where the movie Tomb Raider had been filmed and BanteaySrei – the temple of amazing pink sand stone. They all look spectacular in the postcard, guide book or in the photos you found in Google before coming to Cambodia. But many travelers, after having very good time in their Cambodia tours, indulge with the masterpiece of Khmer people in their temple but when coming home, the photos taken from the trip appeared on their computers are not as good as their expectation. So I would like to share some of my personal experience how to have better picture of Angkor temples in the best moments. I will focus in the main temples as I mentioned above.
Angkor Wat
This is the most amazing and popular temples for travelers to visit. You can see the image of Angkor Wat in the Cambodia Flag or in the most of the postcard of Angkor Temple. The most popular photo is the panorama view of Angkor Wat in the sunset with the beautiful lake of water lily in front that can provide the perfect perspective and reflection of the temple on the water. These photos normally were taken from 5:30 PM to 6:30 PM, in the sunset time. It can be slightly change depends on the season. In the summer time the sunset can be later than in the winter time there. As the temple facing to the West, so by the sunset time, the sun right behind you and provide the best lighting condition for the photos. Incredibly, you can see the color of the temple change during sunset time that can be showed in your photo then.
The other very good time for taking photo of Angkor Wat is in the morning. As the sun rise up from the East so you should take the photo from the back side of the temple. The best time for the morning photo is from 5:15 AM to 7:00 AM.
Another useful note for taking photos of Angkor Wat is you should not only focus only in the temple. The surrounded area of Angkor Wat is also worth for many great photos. Especially on the afternoon, when the temple is packed of thousands of tourist.
Angkor Thom
Two best places for the great photos is the area around the main entrances, lovely photos of Bayon Face and Terrace of Elephant. Like Angkor War, two best times to take photos here is dawn (from 5:15 AM to 7:00 AM) and sunset (5:30 PM to 6:30 PM)
Ta Prohm temple
Ta Prohm temple is one of the best temples in Siemreap for impressive photos. It is also called “the Jungle Temple” as this is one of the most original condition temples since it had been discovered. The best photos of Ta Prohm temple is the photos of the temple with amazing root and trunk of big trees growing on the wall of the temple. The big disadvantage when taking photos here is during the day, thousands of tourists coming here, and they are always in your photos. So is you want to have very good photos of Ta Prohm temple, you should come here early in the morning, before the regular tourist for the best lighting and photos of the temple.
Banteay Srei
The Banteay Srei temple was constructed from the pink sand stone so it looks fantastic in the sunset. By this time, the temple also not packed by tourists, so it will be great for the good perspective and lighting for the photos here. You can focus on the sophisticated carving on the sandstone and amazing architecture of the temple here.
I hope that my opinion of best moments and places to take pictures of Angkor Temples in Cambodia will help you while traveling in this mysterious country.
By Yangblue
