What Is Golden Hour & Blue Hour and How to Use It in your Photography

There are moments of the day that have a peculiar, almost magical, light, capable of providing us with really beautiful scenarios.

In this article, I would like to talk about those moments that, as a photographer, you must know and take advantage of to capture impressive photos.

Magic Hour

The magic hour is the first hour of light from dawn and the last hour before sunset, during which the light has specific characteristics: a dominant warm light (if we talk about the golden hour), and a dominant cold light (if we refer to the blue hour)

Although we say "hour", perhaps it would be more accurate to call it "time", because depending on the latitude at which we are within the planet and the time of year, this "time" may refer to several hours or to just few minutes.

To know the time of appearance and the duration of these magic hours, there are different tools that you can use, such as The Golden Hour Calculator or the PhotoPills mobile app.

Golden hour

The golden hour is the period of time in which the sunlight acquires warm and orange tones that are very attractive to the eye. Depending on whether the sun has set or not, you can shoot different scenes:

If the sun has not set, you will find it in a low position and therefore:

• The shadows will be elongated, something that you can use in your photographs.
• You can also take advantage of the sun's rays that come out between buildings, people, etc. (flares)

If the sun has just gone down, the light is soft and diffuse, which makes a flattering light generally for landscape, portrait, etc.

Unlike other times of the day, if your subjects are facing the sun almost directly during golden hour, they won't need to squint their eyes because the light is diffuse. The light will also not bounce off them.

With the uniform golden sunlight falling on your subjects, their face and skin will get a glow that only the golden hour can provide.

During the golden hour, edge light effects can also be created. This is the name given to the halo effect that surrounds a subject. It is created by backlighting it.

The light that outlines the object is even more dynamic when placed in front of a darker background. The sun behind them will create the edge light around your object which, in turn, will cause them to come out of the background. The sun doesn't need to be directly behind your subject to achieve this effect, as long as the background is also a bit dark.

Blue Hour

It occurs when the sun has just set and there are still some warm tones just on the horizon, but the sky takes on a deep blue hue and a cool color temperature.

This moment of light is very interesting for urban photography, since we can combine the artificial light of the cities with the natural light of the sun and thus play with the saturation and with the different tones that are observed in the sky.

The combination of warm and cold tones is also very interesting for landscape photography. The moon can also be one of the targets in this type of photography, just before nightfall.

To take photos in the blue hour it is recommended that we carry a tripod with us because natural light is already very scarce. This way we won't  need to force the ISO.

Recommendations for taking photos at the Magic Hour

Finally, we leave you some general recommendations to improve your photos:

1. If you have one, use a tripod.

2. Learn to use the manual control of your camera or device. In particular, do not leave the white balance in "auto", otherwise, the camera will try to counteract those tones that we have been looking for so much.

3. Set the ISO to a low level to ensure the sharpness of your photos.

4. Shoot using RAW function instead of jpg, so you will be able to process the photo later and get the best end result.