What’s the Best Time to Take Pictures? Three Reasons We Love Golden Hour

What’s the best time of day to take pictures?

We are natural light professionals because we believe that natural light, from the sun and its reflections, creates photos that feel fresh, timeless, and real. We begin all portrait and couples sessions two hours before the scheduled sunset during “the golden hour,” when the light is the dreamiest (Check out the dreamy light in this session).  If you have young kids, having a two hour session is beneficial because it allows us to give your little ones plenty of time to take breaks while we work with other family members! You can use a sunset calculator online to determine the scheduled sunset for the date and location you’d like to do your session. Then, just subtract two hours to figure out your start time. The sun sets much earlier during the colder time of the year and much later during the warmer months, so make sure to think about that when choosing your portrait session date.  This is especially true if you’re taking off time at work or have plans for after the session. We’re only able to shoot when there is light still in the sky, so we’ll want to make the most of every minute we have together before the sun sets.

 

There’s a reason it’s called “golden hour”

Golden hour really is golden! On a normal, sunny day the last hours of the day create a dreamy light that make you look your very best. The soft light helps to prevent harsh shadows or weird sun spots from showing up on your face or clothes. It really makes your skin glow and even helps to bring out the best colors in your outfits and in the surrounding landscape. If you ever want to experiment, go outside during the early afternoon when the sun is the highest and take a look around. Chances are you might be squinting at times, or you may even notice strange shadows on the faces of people around you. Then go outside about an hour before sunset.  You’ll notice that it’s a lot easier to look at thing without squinting, and there are a lot more shady areas with even light.  This is all because of the positioning of the sun in the sky.

More movement

When we do sessions during the last two hours before sunset, we are able to include a lot more movement in our posing. Fun interactive family or couple shots are much easier to do when the light is even and balanced. When the sun is harsh and higher in the sky we have to be really strategic to make sure that you look amazing and don’t have sun spots that show up on your face or clothing.