The sun plays a major role in just about all landscape images (except for night photography). It is the primary source of light. The position of the sun is of the utmost importance. This controls the direction of shadows. This creates backlighting, side lighting, and all sorts of other effects. This sun is not just important as a light source but can often be included in the composition of the image to become the center point of interest. Because the sun is bright (never look into the sun) it will always play a major part in any image it is included in. The brightest part of an image is where the eyes go to first. This makes the sun in an image very strong compositionally.

The sun does not always have to be on the horizon to be included in an image. Place the sun on the edge of a branch or a building or any hard edge, stop down (use a small aperture) and you have a sun star. Be on the lookout to use the sun in your images. Pay close attention to the placement of the sun. Since it is so strong compositionally the sun needs to be placed in a good position. Here the sun was placed where the right thirds line and the top thirds line intersect which is a very strong position.

          The rest of the image also needs to be well thought out. Watch the boundary of the image to make sure that it is clean, try not to nick anything. Notice that I do not have another tree touching the boundary. In this image, the trees on the far left bring balance to the weight of the tree with the sun. When the sun is included in the image, especially a low sun, we usually find nice warm light. You might want to warm up your white balance just a bit.

          Pay attention to where the sun is and how it impacts your image. Consider placing the sun in your image.