In this lesson: Explore how you can warm up your colors by shooting in morning or evening light

Taking advantage of the light during Golden Hour – the hour or so after sunrise and before sunset – helps you create images with warm, vibrant colors.

Golden Hour in a Nutshell

When the sun is low on the horizon, its light travels through more of Earth’s atmosphere to reach your area. Because of this, a greater portion of the light that reaches you is indirect. That is, it has spread out over a wider area. This causes a shift in the color temperature of the light toward red, resulting in a “warmer” light. Lighting during Golden Hour is also very soft, with low levels of contrast. These features of Golden Hour lighting can be used to your advantage in outdoor photography to enhance certain colors in a way that can make your images appear to glow, as seen in the sample image of the horses grazing at sunrise.

Benefits of Golden Hour

This time of day also offers other unique opportunities for photographers. Some of the benefits of shooting during Golden Hour are:

• Warm illumination for landscapes and portraits that give the image a soft glow.

• Long, dramatic shadows, which improve the depth of the shot while also adding visual interest.
• Opportunities for creative photography techniques, such as time-lapse videos, shutter dragging, and long exposures, as seen in the sample image of Horseshoe Bend.

Challenge Activity

Find locations that provide opportunities to capture images in the lighting that occurs an hour before sunset and an hour after sunrise. Doing so will help you learn to take advantage of Golden Hour lighting to have a positive impact on your images.

Step 1: Scout locations for your shoots.

Step 2: Check sunrise and/or sunset times for the locations.

Step 3: Arrive early enough to set up your camera on a tripod and to plan and prepare your shots. Give yourself at least 30 minutes for these tasks.

Step 4: Look for and capture shadows to enhance your images.

Step 5: Try turning your back to the sun to capture images that feature the quality of the warm light as it falls on the landscape.

Step 6: Take several long-exposure photos, leveraging the low light to create motion blur, light trails and other phenomena that add impact to your Golden Hour images. Bracket your exposures to attain various effects.

Step 7: Try using Golden Hour lighting to take a portrait, as seen in the sample portrait of the woman at sunset.