The golden hour, sometimes called the "magic hour", is roughly the first hour of light after sunrise, and the last hour of light before sunset, although the exact duration varies between seasons. During these times the sun is low in the sky, producing a soft, diffused light which is much more flattering than the harsh midday sun that so many of us are used to shooting in.
This type of light produces less contrast, reducing the chances of losing parts of your subject in strong shadows or blown-out highlights. The warm glow adds a pleasing feel to the scene, and the long shadows help to pick out details, adding texture and depth to the image.
As an added benefit, there are generally fewer people around at dawn and dusk than there are at other times of the day, giving you a chance to capture your images in relative peace.
When to Use It
The golden hour rule can be applied to any type of outdoor photography. As well as the more obvious subjects such as landscapes and city scenes, it also works well for outdoor portraits, shots of flowers and plants, and even certain types of still life such as cars.After reading the information above, Ralph and I both talked about spending more time taking photographs at sunrise and sunset.
Yesterday when we were driving to Redcrest for an early morning round of golf - we noticed the most amazing fog in the valleys along Highway 400. While driving I had said to Ralph that I wished we had the time to stop and photograph these beautiful views of the scenery around us. Regrettably we couldn't because we had a game scheduled for 7:30 a.m.
We decided then, that we would get up early on Sunday morning before church and see if we could take some pictures. To be successful, we would need a significant change in temperature. Unfortunately the fog wasn't as deep as it was the day before, but we decided to keep driving and see what is looked like on the other side of Holland Marsh. While it was foggy, it wasn't as pronounced as what we saw on Saturday. We cut off the highway and drove east in search of the elusive fog. Finally we started to see some patches so we stopped and pulled out our cameras. The following are a few pictures that we took.
