What is Golden Hour & why would I be interested in it?
Golden
Hour is that great time just before sunset when the sun in low and
imparts a great warm light & soft shadows. It's a favourite time of
day for photographers & cinematographers. The light at this time of
day does great things, it can give skin a wonderful glow, it can create
nice shadows that give definition without obfuscation. So many people
sing it's praises that it is almost a cliche.
Although some of the glories ascribed to golden hour might be a bit extreme it's still something to be explored.
I
say explored because it takes a bit of effort & experience to get
good golden hour photos, same as with photos taken at any other time.
You can't just say "oh, it's 30 minutes til sunset" and point your lens
in any direction push the shutter & be guaranteed a captivating
piece of art.
With basic photgraphic techniques, a bit
of observation &, probably some trial & error, you can get some
really interesting results. This formula of basic techniques,
observation & trial will usually work in most situations. This is
another reason I used the word 'explore' earlier. When shooting at
"solar noon" with the sun directly above you it makes very little
difference how you arrange yourself & the subject in respect to the
light as it will always be directly above you. I've heard this time of
day called the "ugliest", "most boring" & "worst" part of the day to
shoot outdoors using all natural light. The idea follows that the
farther away from that light/ sun position your are the nicer or more
appealing the light will be.
Obviously
with some skill and a bit of kit you can make the light at "solar noon"
look much more pleasing and do just about what you want. But, that's
not what we're talking about today. We're talking about exploring golden
hour. At noon there's modifying , but not much exploring of the light.
where at golden hour it can be more about exploring what the existing
can do for you "out of the box" or "as is". You look at the sun and
the subject and work out from there, you can still add modifiers and
other tools to enhance your photos if needed. For me at least, golden
hour is about seeing what the natural light can do alone and building on
that. The light might give me something different than I had planned,
but that's what exploring is all about.
Click Subscribe and never miss a post.
Want to see more?
I'm also on
Twitter,
Redbubble,
Flickr,
Vimeo,
YouTube,
&
Google+.
