Set an alarm. Be out before 6am. The streets are empty or nearly so. The light is soft and low. The people who are out at that hour - cleaners, delivery drivers, early commuters, the night's last stragglers - are not the same people as the afternoon crowd.

Watch for: the twenty minutes around actual sunrise. The quality of light changes faster than you expect.

Try this: Scout the spot the day before so you are not wandering in the half-light. Face east for silhouettes against the rising sun, or west for the first warm light landing on buildings and early faces. Be in position before the colour arrives.

The point: most street photographers work afternoons. The dawn shift is uncontested.