What is the golden hour in photography?

Pitt River Bridge in Maple Ridge, photographed15 minutes before sundown.

I love photographing landscapes during the golden hour.  When is that, exactly?  It is the time, an hour before sunset or an hour after sunrise, in your area.  The time varies dramatically depending on the season (tilt of the Earth relative to the sun) and the geographical location.  For example, the above photo was taken at 4:12 pm on January 3, 2014.  Sunset was at 4:27 that day, meaning the shot was taken 15 minutes before the sun would set behind the horizon.

Why is the golden hour considered important?  It all comes down to light quality and shadow density.  As the sun gets lower, light must travel through more and more atmosphere.  The atmosphere does three things.  First, it reduces the intensity of the light as the number of particulates increases.  Second, as light passes through the atmosphere, the nitrogen and oxygen molecules scatter the blue wavelengths (Rayleigh scattering) and not the warmer wavelengths (red).  This causes the sky to be blue and, late in the day, the highly filtered light from the sun is made of warmer wavelengths.  This adds a "golden" hue to the light.  Thirdly, the circular shape of the earth and its atmosphere acts as a lens, bending the red shades towards the earth at a steeper angle.  This is why you see rich red colours in the final moments of a sunset and why a lunar eclipse often produces a blood moon.

The low light and large amount of reflected light produce weak shadows, while lit images have a warmer glow to them.  This means that shadows have details and visible surfaces glow with an ethereal warm hue.  

I prefer to go out in the morning for shooting wildlife and in the evening for doing landscapes.  There is less fog in the evening as well, although I do have some nice photos with fog.  Perhaps I will talk about that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com