Golden Hour

Many novice photographers may chose to shoot during the middle of the day, but any professional photographer will tell you that the best time of day to shoot would be either during sunrise, or during sunset, this is called the golden hour . Most of the time golden hour photos are landscapes and city scenes. It also works for outdoor portraits, shots of plants or flowers, and sometimes even still life examples. There are some simple steps you can take to perfect your golden hour footage.

The Steps to Using the Golden Hour to Your Advantage:

1. Be There

Seems obvious doesn’t it? Make sure you are aware of when this magical time occurs because it happens so quickly that if you’re not there you risk losing out on an opportunity to capture this beautiful lighting.

2. Be Prepared

Have everything you need out and ready ahead of time. We aren’t kidding … this time of the day happens so quickly that you won’t wan’t to waste time getting your things out. Have everything ready to go way beforehand including the actual location of your shoot.

3. Balance the Exposure

The contrast between low light and shadow is important because during the Golden Hour it is not nearly as extreme as it is during the day, but there can still be a huge tonal difference between highlights and lowlights. Bracketing your shots is an easy go to solution. How to bracket? Check YouTube for a video about it with your camera … it is SUPER helpful.

4. Set the White Balance

Light has different colors - thats a fact. Look at the light in your lamp, now check the light in your fridge. Notice how cool and warm they are? Color temperatures exist like this all over the place. Light casts color onto everything which is why some time you notice a picture might have a blue tint to it or feel super yellow. Set your WB to auto and give it a go, but if things still look funky then select the WB mode that is closest to the environment that you are shooting in.

5. Savor the Time

This sincerely is such a beautiful time of the day. Don’t get to caught up in shooting shooting shooting. Take a minute and enjoy what beautiful imagery you have been gifted.

Steps to Composing a GOOD Photo:

While you shoot during the Golden Hour, another way to ensure a good photograph is to follow three simple steps to composing your photo.

The first step is to frame your photo in the camera lens the way you want it too.
Then, move closer to the subject matter that you want to shoot.
Lastly, shoot the image from multiple angles so that you can choose the picture that captures the image best, and different angles all offer different, interesting perspectives.