Make Outdoor Photographs More Beautiful using the Golden Hour

Make outdoor photographs more beautiful using the Golden Hour – the time of day that consists of few minutes between sunset and total darkness of the night. How many times have you left open-mouthed in front of a beautiful picture of a sunset? La hora mágica, Ora d’oro, Godhuli – in various languages, various spiritual believes, this Golden Hour always got an importance – the light makes everything to go a natural filter like effect. Needless to say, Golden Hour itself has been a phrase with different meaning.

There are two moments in the day used to be favored by photographers, especially by those who typically photograph landscapes or outdoor scenes. These are the two intervals of about one to half an hour that constitute the so-called golden hour and dawn. Golden hour stretches for about half an hour before the sunset and dawn half  an hour after the full sunrise.

Why We Can Make Outdoor Photographs More Beautiful using the Golden Hour

Within the world of photography golden hour is mostly used to describe the time. Although the term magic hour is mostly used in the world of cinema. Filming scenes in this specific time is considered a technique which has been used in various films. Filming at this time involves patience to be quick and efficient to operate the camera with great intuition, looking to capture every last moment of light. Days of Heaven, The New World, The Tree of Life – are some example of such movies, not to forget the film Titanic.

In this golden hour the color temperature increases considerably, creating blue and pinkish hues. More the Sun will go towards to set, less will be the blue hue. During this time, the light is of such a quality that gives much more charm to the scene to be photographed. It is easy to agree with this by looking at some examples of photos taken during the golden hour or thinking about how often we tried to take pictures of sunsets. The light, during the golden hour, among others the following advantages :

1. The color of the light (“golden”, gold) makes the colors warmer, more intense
2. The sky offers shades of yellow, red, purple, which are often very “exciting”
3. The angle of the sunlight gives objects photographed a bright aura depending on the angle from which it is photographed ; after sunset
4. The blue light of the sky and the first lights make it very spectacular photos that include the buildings;
5. If there is water, you can create an interesting play of reflections, taking the advantage of both the sunlight and artificial lighting.

Yes ! Be Creative to Make Outdoor Photographs More Beautiful using the Golden Hour

Thus, a fundamental advice for those who want to photograph landscapes, also in general for those who are usually shooting outdoors, get used to exploit the golden hour. Generally, between the sunrise and sunset, the first is to be preferred, except in the case where you want to play with the lights of the buildings, which are likely to be turned off at dawn. Moreover, one should take into account that the light during the golden hour, increases in the colder seasons.

Despite the undoubted advantages, the photograph during the golden hour hides the pitfalls :

1. If we want to take advantage of the best conditions, i.e. dawn and cold season, go out to photograph during the golden hour, it can become very tiring (but, as the we say, “no pain, no gain”)
2. The intensity of light available is less than what you may have during the day, so we often have to resort to longer exposure times, so it will take a tripod to avoid camera shake
3. The window of time available is very short (about half an hour), so we can not waste time in trying, better to have found the scene to be photographed in advance.
4. To conclude, we recommend some kind of golden hour calculator App.