Talking About "Golden Hour"

If you've ever had professional photos taken outdoors, you've probably heard of the phrase "golden hour". Maybe you have a friend or family member who is a photographer and they use terms like this but you have no idea what they're talking about.

I want to help you understand what this magical time is and why photographers love it so much.

In photography land, there are two kinds of light - harsh light and soft (or diffused) light. Just about every photo you've seen of friends and family that was professionally done, was taken in soft light. Now, it may have been done in the middle of the day, but the photographer found a way to make the light soft.

Before I go any further, I want to show you some photos I took of my brother's baseball teams. You'll get a feel for what I'm talking about as we go on.

See how smooth and even the lighting is? Now look at these photos that were taken in the middle of the day, with harsh light.

There are a lot more shadows. Those hard shadows are what we want to avoid. Now, for sports, it works. But you'll see that the team picture is not what it could be if we had been able to do a different time of day/different location. All those shadows, the squinting; that's what we don't want for your portraits.

Okay, now that you've seen some examples of lighting, let's talk about the magical "golden hour". This is the time of day when the light is nice and soft and beautiful. It gives lovely skin and evenly lights everything in the photograph. The best times for photography, based on these lighting conditions, are sunrise and about the two hours before sunset.

I don't know about you, but I don't know too many people who want to get up at five, six, seven a.m. for a portrait session! I sure don't want to do that on a regular basis. Most photographers, who understand lighting, schedule their portrait sessions for the evening golden hour.

So what about when you just can't do an evening session? Your husband works afternoons, or you have little kids who go to bed at 7:30? Doing a session during the day is not the end of the world. Photographers who understand light will find some shade or find some way to use the light to their advantage to give you the photos you want. Is it easier for us to do evening sessions? Yes, absolutely. But we are happy to work with you and your schedule.

I want to just briefly touch on cloudy days. There are pros and cons to shooting with overcast skies. The pro is that there are no harsh shadows at anytime. It's nice, even light. The con is that you can still have dark eyes if your photographer is not careful. When I did Danielle's senior session, I had to work to find where the sun was behind the clouds so that her face was evenly lit and she didn't have dark eyes. Here are examples of what happens when you don't find the light. They're not bad, but you can see that their eyes are in shadow.

Compare with these photos. Look closely at the eyes.

I know this was a little on the long side, but now you know a little bit about what your photographer is taking into consideration when scheduling your portrait session. Next time you're booking a session and they bring up the "golden hour" you know what they are talking about and why it matters to much to them!

Blessings,
Sarah