golden_hour

In landscape photography and cinema, there are two “Golden hours”: the first hour after sunrise and the last one before sunset. At these times, the sun is lower and less bright and as a result colours look warmer and softer, and shadows are less pronounced. Portrait photographers often use these times too as the soft lighting favours the tones of pale skins and blonde hair.

Stanley Kubrick’s stunningly beautiful film Barry Lyndon was filmed almost exclusively in the Golden Hours and this made for a difficult production, with the cast and crew having to be on set at dawn and dusk every day and filming being more than usually dependent on the weather.

The picture above was taken during the golden hour before sundown, at about 9:30 last night. It shows this effect rather well. It looks better bigger, so please click on it.

Cheers, Tom.