Photography in Golden Hour

If there's one thing that can make or break a photograph more than any other, it's lighting. You might have the most incredible landscape or stunning portrait model, but without the right quality of light you can still be left with a flat, dull, and uninspiring photo. To take a stunning photo, it is important to take advantages of "golden hour”- the first hour of light after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset.

Rim Lighting

A huge benefit to having portraits backlit with the sun is achieving that wonderful rim lighting – where the edges of your model are outlined by a thin thread of light. When photographed at the right angle, you have an incredibly powerful portrait.

Use a Wide Aperture

For a truly artistic approach to shooting these golden hour portraits, you can open your aperture wide up which will give you a fantastic shallow depth of field and the setting sun can provide a huge amount of light that can turn into beautiful Bokeh.

Foreground Interest

A great layering technique that you’ll find often with these portraits is to shoot with a wide aperture and place something in the foreground – usually some type of foliage. Lock the focus on your model and the foreground will become blurred – giving a natural, soft layering effect that adds depth and interest to your image.