Some hairsplitting

Obviously, there are two of each every day. Their exact lengths depend on the time of the year. observer's latitude, but also on the definition of "just above" and "just below" terms we are using here.

The elevation values of +6° (golden) and -6° (blue) are often used. These make sense, although I would opt for more. (Note: elevation angles are measured perpendicular to the local horizon plane. not along the Sun's apparent path.)

This would, however, make things too simple. Some writers argue that the quality of light over the first few degrees of the Sun below the horizon is quite like that within the first few above, so that the borderline between gold and blue should be moved down. For example, blue would be (-6°to -4°) and golden — (-4°to +6°)

Frankly speaking, I don't care. It is just a matter of agreeing what words mean, or how to draw a line — like with "middle class".

How is the light different, and why?

The image recorded as a photograph (disregarding artificial light sources) captures the sunlight reflected (or, more exactly, scattered) from the subject. Assuming no clouds, this light consists of two major components.

• Direct sunlight
• Sky light

The direct sunlight has, before illuminating the subject, to pass through the air of the Earth's atmosphere, and lots of it. For the Sun directly overhead (which may happen only in the tropics) the thickness of this layer, measured at the sea level, is about 1000 g/cm² — that's as much as in a 10-meter layer of water! This dramatically increases as the Sun gets lower in the sky: 2000 g/cm² at the elevation of 30° and close to 10,000 g/cm² at 6° the commonly assumed golden hour limit.

This is a quite well-known fact, but it is only one side of the story. The other one is what happens with the scattered shorter wavelengths, the blue end of the spectrum. After multiple deflections some of it escapes into the outer space, making our planet so nicely blue to an outside observer; some reaches the Earth surface, making our sky look blue, and providing a diffused, bluish light.

This light is usually weaker than the direct sunlight, so the effect is usually hidden, except for the "open shade" lighting (note: the highest, or most blue, color temperature of all WB presets, 7500°K compared to 5300°K for "sunny").

What really happens during the Golden and Blue Hour?

And with the Sun near the horizon, it is when the fun really begins. In addition to becoming more red, the direct sunlight gets weaker, while the blue ambient light becomes more saturated. Many scenes (see my urban landscape below) become more colorful, with different areas, depending on the angle, illuminated mostly by one or the other component. The ambient light, no longer relegated to a second-class status, also opens up the shadows.

My description follows the sunset Golden and Blue Hours. For the sunrise ones all happens in reverse order.

But wait, we haven't even entered the Blue Hour yet. Once the Sun gets below the horizon, the direct component does not go away. If we have some clouds in the Western sky, still lit by the Sun, they will take over the job of providing the non-scattered (red) component, even if it will be softer, more diffused than when coming directly from the Sun. It will also become more purple than red, because of both components more evenly mixed (and red+blue=purple).

It is this time of transition which I consider best for picture-taking (usually delivering most enjoyable, sometimes unexpected, results), and I think inserting a Golden/Blue boundary point into it is simply misleading.

The Blue Hour then becomes purely blue, losing most of other hues, to the point of becoming monochrome, but retaining the softness. this still may work nicely with some subjects, until we simply reach the point when there is not enough light.

Artificial light

This may be another kind of light in our scenes, in addition to the two already discussed. With the right timing, it may become quite a factor — see the Urban Landscape example below. You may have to wait until the two other kinds become weaker, for this one to come out.

Golden Hour Landscapes

Wide-open landscapes in Golden Hour light from behind the camera (usually a poor lighting, but not here) are easy and predictable to shoot, and still can be quite pleasing.

Obviously, we don't want the camera to balance the color towards neutral; we want it to be golden-red; this is why a thing to remember is to set WB to the "Sunny" (5300°K) preset; maybe even to "cloudy" to give our images even more of the red punch.

I'm feeling outright embarrassed saying that: the image above was shot with Auto WB. and I had to spruce it up in postprocessing. I never use Auto WB except for incandescent light, so it must have been an accident. Oops. Sorry. Never again, I hope.

I also like to underexpose my pictures under these circumstances. This can be important. If the highlights are red, some may have the total luminosity within the RGB range of 255, but with the red channel overloaded, the detail lost. If you have to stretch the range of an underexposed frame, the resulting increase in noise can be fixed; if you burn out the detail, it is lost forever. (And no, it does not help much if you save images in the raw format.)

Note that, just for the heck of it, I'm including here a picture shot on film, back in 1998. I was driving in Utah (or was it Colorado?), with just enough time to stop, get out, and shoot three frames — without even thinking about exposure (or anything else). Well, beginner's luck: got myself a keeper.

Golden Hour Portraits

Portraits, and photographing people in general, reap huge benefits from the Golden Hour light. It becomes so easy, too easy, that it may feel like cheating.

It is not just the red direct sunlight, even if is additionally softened by some light-reflecting clouds. If you are lucky (or smart) enough to have an area of open, but darker, background, it will bring into the picture some blue; perhaps not enough to get noticed, but enough to make the redness stand out more.

Both these pictures are casual snapshots, taken two minutes apart on a late-summer day (August 23) in a pier restaurant in Ocracoke Village, North Carolina. The village, including its picturesque harbor, is one of the best places I know for Magic Hour photography.

Postprocessing

Many of the Golden and Blue Hour images do not require any special postprocessing; just the usual tonal adjustment until you like the result. In some cases, however, the foreground may be dark, with insufficient detail.

Opening up the shadows can be attempted with use of Levels or Curves (or equivalent) on most photo-editing applications. I prefer, however, especially for Blue Hour images, to use two other tools available in Paint Shop Pro: Fill/Clarity and Local Tone Mapping. Both are, I believe. included in other photo editors, under somewhat different names. Also, both should be used with caution, especially the LTM which is very easy to over-apply, to the point when it is no longer an image adjustment, becoming rather a special effect.

After that I sometimes apply the Hue/Saturation/Lightness tool to adjust a selected color or two.

Note: In all examples that follow, I'm listing nor only the image adjustments applied (tools used), but also amount of each, a numeric parameter.If you are using a photo editor other than my Paint Shop Pro 20, even if it has a given (or similar) function, it may be using a different scale than PSP. Eight on a ten point scale is not the same as eight out of 256.

Here are all tools/functions used in the postprocessing described here, including the range for each adjusted parameter. This may come handy when you try my procedures on a different software.

• Curves — most adjustments can be done by inserting one or more points and moving them around. The x and y (input and output) values range from 0 to 255 in all applications I've seen.
• Fill and Clarity (PSP combines them into one tool): 0..127 and -127..+127;
• Local Tone Mapping: 0..100; values above 10 or 12 are special effects rather than image adjustment. (There is another parameter here in PSP, called Block Size, which I keep frozen at 8, which is the minimum value allowed.)
• Saturation and Lightness (parts of the HSL tool): -100..+100 each, for each color component...

Gold #1: Concrete jungle, Łódź, Poland

This one is quite simple: the tall building is evenly lit by the low Sun behind the camera; the only problem is that the foreground detail is largely lost in shadows. This is why am applying here somewhat more Fill and LTM than I usually do.

Blue #1: Urban landscape, Łódź, Poland

This is a perfect example of a blue-hour image, as it includes all three kinds of light which may be present in such scenes: blue (clear parts of the sky), purple/red (sun-lit clouds) and artificial (street lights, windows, etc.)

The original in-camera JPEG (#1 in the Flipper sequence) was generated in Natural Picture Mode, contrast and sharpness at -1, Sunny WB. It is somewhat on the dark side. That's the way I wanted it; after all, this is a dark scene. Still, it has visible shadow detail, and for some people this may be the version of choice, no postprocessing needed.

I did the monochrome conversions just to satisfy my curiosity. As expected, the difference between both is quite striking. While the one using blue filter is more to my liking, neither can compete with the color image.

Gold #2: Harborside, Ocracoke, NC

As a picture, this is nothing special, but it serves well as an example of a water-side Golden Hour scene other than a sunset or sunset-lit sky.

Blue #2: The Hemingway's Marina, Kent Island, MD

One the oldest blue-hour photos in my archives: a marina at the Hemingway's restaurant near Annapolis, MD, shot in May of 2001 at 7:30 PM.

Gold #3: Badlands rockscape, North Dakota

Quite different than most Golden Hour scenes, both straight off the camera and after the postprocessing, with a number of viable options for the latter.

This is, if I remember right, the Badlands Wall area, near the Door and Window Trailheads, where we had Magic Hour sessions two evenings in a row. The Sun is just about to cross the horizon line: only the tips of larger rocks catch some of it.

And here — a Golden Hour bummer! The picture "as shot" is quite disappointing, as the foreground sandstone, illuminated mostly by the blue-sky light, lacks any redeeming qualities, be it shape, shadow pattern, or texture. The tiny sunlit areas are not enough to help. Boring.

Blue #3: More Badlands

Another most enjoyable Golden and Blue Hour session, this one a day before the one from the previous Example. One limitation: I took no tripod along.

The picture I chose to show here was shot well after sunset (8:03 PM, September 20). Together with some of its neighbors, it exhibits one peculiar feature: the sky is quite blue near the horizon, becoming more pink higher up, both in pastel shades.