Do you prefer sun rise or sun set?

Starting at age 10 when summers were for fun, sunrise & outside to play would probably be when it made a difference.

From then on for 74 more years or 27,027 days to include about 17 days for leap years at some point it didn't matter.
 
For this landscape photographer, I work many more dawn skies than actual sunrises, even with unblocked open views eastward. That is because sky colors are usually more saturated a bit earlier. Much depends on weather with atmospheric clarity and availability of clouds to reflect warm light. Water vapor in atmospheres block much light. The best conditions have low water vapor in lower atmospheres and high clouds above. The towering mountains of the Eastern Sierra Nevada more often have dry clear air, especially when viewing east from above 8,000 feet because the Great Basin to the east has much less water vapor and pollution versus areas west over urbanized California.

The below is downsized for web version of dawn from the west shore of huge Mono Lake at 6600 feet. Original is 5400 by 3600 pixels. Those are seagulls that nest on lake islands. They are eating for breakfast, brine shrimp and alkali brine flies off the surface. Unlike 95% of most other photographers, I don't jack up saturation or created fake color hues in my work, but rather prefer reasonably accurate experienced fidelity.

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Another way to capture either sunrise or sunset light is not the sky itself but rather the warm light on landscapes. That is especially effective at high mountain altitudes due to clear air with low water vapor.

Colorful sunsets and dusk skies in my region are limited by heavy cool marine air with lots of water vapor to the extent it often forms fog. In the summer, the California sunsets are far less interesting than those further north in the Northwest because high pressure with few clouds but much fog is most common. Also, highest viewpoints are much lower, at most just a few thousand feet, and considerable lands are private residential owned with public lands at shore levels. Despite less, if I lived right on the coast, I'd be able to capture lots more good sunset skies because they do occur, just not common.
 
Sadly for me, I rarely see either since the landscape and positioning of homes around me is such that I cannot see the horizon to the east or west. The sun is out of view until it is well up, or well down.

It is sometimes difficult to distinguish a rising from a setting sun. This thread reminded me of what Benjamin Franklin once said: U.S. History.org
 
I have always liked sunrise better than sunset. I'm up early every morning from early Spring until late Fall. I sit on my balcony (or porch in earlier versions of my life) with a coffee, waiting for the sun to rise and the birds beginning sing.

That is my quiet time, I longed for it during my working years and now enjoy every moment of sunrises as I possibly can. Living in the northeast, there are several months that I cannot watch from outdoors, but I make do with windows.
 

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