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June 23, 2017 By Sixth-Bloom Leave a Comment

4 Tips for Shooting at Golden Hour

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4 Tips for Shooting at Golden Hour – whether you are wanting to know how to set the camera for golden hour photos or tips for golden hour selfies, all of this post is for you.  Learn tips to shoot amazing photos at golden hour for great portraits and landscape pictures. 

Oh, Golden Hour…my favorite time of day to photograph. It’s such a dreamy time of day, adding beautiful sun-rays and golden hues to your subjects, creating the prettiest photos. There’s some things you should know when prepping a shoot during Golden Hour though, so let me walk you through them. First things first – what is golden hour? You know, besides being a natural filter that adds warm skin tones and beautiful backlighting?

Golden Hour is a natural reflector. It begins about one hour before sunset and only lasts for a short time, so it’s important that you’re in the right spot at the right time. The sun is low enough that your subjects will have even lighting on their skin, as opposed to the shadows + harsh highlights that occur during the day.

When I schedule a shoot for golden hour, I set our start time two hours before sunset. That way, I’ve given myself enough time to work with my clients and they’ll feel most comfortable in front of the camera when it matters the most – golden hour.

Tips for Shooting at Golden Hour

1- Location Scout Beforehand

Because golden hour doesn’t last very long, make sure you know where you want to be beforehand. Do some location scouting and see which spots look particularly good when the sun is setting. Don’t forget to record what time you’re there! To make things as accurate as possible, do your location scouting 1-2 weeks before your shoot takes place.

2- Be Efficient

Know the poses you want to do during golden hour so that you won’t lose any time when it arrives! If you struggle with knowing how to pose your clients, here are a few posing ideas to get you started.

3- Focusing

It can be hard to focus on a subject when there’s sun-flare. This is when a lens hood comes in handy, but if you don’t have a lens hood then you can bring your free hand in front of the camera (and above) to block some of the sun.

4- Adjust Your White Balance

One fun in-camera setting that I love is setting my white balance to Kelvin. It gives you more control on the overall tone in your images – you get to decide how warm or cool you want the images to be while you’re shooting. The higher the number, the warmer your tones will be. The lower the number, the cooler your tones will be.

 

Hopefully knowing these tips will give you a better experience the next time you have a photo-shoot! Did you find this blog post helpful? I’d love to know! Send me an email with your new & improved golden hour photos, at JoelleElizabethPhotography@gmail.com

 

Tips for Shooting at Golden Hour

 
GUEST BLOGER: 
 
Joelle Arner is a wedding photographer from Chicago who loves romance, a good cup of coffee, God-dates, and watching the sun set with people who mean the most.

Filed Under: Learn Your Camera

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I'm Erin owner and chief editor of Sixth Bloom! A wife and mom living the small town life in Mississippi just outside of New Orleans Louisiana. A retired piano teacher of 19 years, currently a professional photographer and blogger. I love Jesus, my family, coffee, french fries and traveling!

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