WHAT IS "GOLDEN HOUR"?

Some of you might have already heard of "Golden Hour" in terms of photography. Then, what does the golden hour exactly mean?

GOLDEN HOUR VS MIDDAY SUNLIGHT

Golden hours typically mean the time during one hour after the sunrise and also one hour before the sunset. During the time, the sun is low, so you can get beautiful soft light that can be beneficial for the photoshoot. I am sure that most of you have experienced taking pictures in midday with harsh sunlight right above you. How did the pictures look? Especially portraits? The model gets harsh shadows on the face: panda-shadows under the eyes, harsh shadow from the nose and so on. That doesn't look very flattering in most of cases. Of course, you can avoid unflattering shadows by trying different methods. If you find a nice shaded spot under trees or a building, you can make a photoshoot there. Or if you have an assistant, you can ask your assistant to hold a diffuser to diffuse the harsh sunlight or to hold a reflector to bounce sunlight to remove unflattering shadow on the face. Or you can even take advantage of a flash light. However, if you can choose the photoshoot time, it will be nice to choose the golden hour.

GOLDEN HOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

What kind of benefit can you get from the golden hour? Low position of the sun in the sky right after the sunrise or before the sunset gives out diffused golden light. It feels almost like, a natural diffuser was used to diffuse harsh sunlight with addition of golden flavor. If you place your models backlighted by the golden hour sun, you can get interesting effects on the image. You can see the golden rim around the figure of the model and also a little bit of golden "halo" around the hair. It can provide very warm feeling to the image. If you think that the models look too dark since they are backlighted, you can ask your assistant to hold a reflector to give some more light to the front side of models. In this case, a golden side from a 5-in-1 reflector may fit better with the golden sunlight. Or, you can also use a flash to brighten up the models. Or, instead you can edit the image in the editing software during the post-processing.

During the winter time, the sun is lower in the sky compared to other seasons. Therefore, you can get somewhat more diffused sunlight through the day compared to the summer. So, even if you cannot do your photoshoot during the golden hour, you don't have to worry too much about harsh sunlight. But one disadvantage would be that it might be too cold to do an outdoor photoshoot for a long time.

SCHEDULING A GOLDEN HOUR PHOTOSHOOT

Then, how can you estimate the golden hour and schedule a photoshoot accordingly? The sunrise and sunset times change through seasons. So, we cannot say that there are fixed time ranges for golden hours through the year. These days, you can find online analyzers that analyze golden hours according to the time of the year and location. Or you can even get a professional mobile app for photographers to estimate golden hours and so on. In my case, I usually find out the estimated sunset time for the time of the year and location from the internet and schedule a photoshoot at least two hours before the sunset. Golden hour is not too long and it can end quickly when you try to set up your equipment and discuss the shooting with your models. So, you have to make sure that you have enough time to do all that. If you want to do a photoshoot at a popular spot in a big city but you want to avoid crowd, it might be worthwhile to wake up early and aim for the sunrise golden hour.

Do you want to book your own golden hour photoshoot? Please send me a message via the contact form in this website.