Time of Day

If you ever wonder what time your photo session will be scheduled, all I can say is “golden hour, but it depends”.

Let’s start with “golden hour”.  That is the hour or so just after sunrise or just prior to sunset.  It is the time of day when the light is the most pleasant – the softest and most complementary.  While shadows can be long, they can be fun.

Now let’s look at the “it depends” part.  That is usually followed by a discussion on locations.  You see, depending on the location, it may be the early morning.  I will be brutally honest, I HATE photographing sunrises.  The reasons are quite simple:  you have to get up VERY early and there’s no guarantee you’ll actually have a nice sunrise.  With a sunset, I’m already up and about so if it’s not a nice sunset I just carry on.

While that approach works for (or limits!) my landscape photography, with portraits it’s quite different.  I’m not looking for the beautiful sunrise – I’m looking for the beautiful light AND the location that is not overrun by people (go back to my “get up VERY early” comment).

So, if you’re interested in a very popular and usually crowded location, we’ll be getting up VERY early.  Here’s an example of such a portrait session and you’ll realize that it was worth it.  If you’ve ever been to this location, you know that it can get pretty crowded and being able to pull off a location centric portrait such as this in the late afternoon would be nearly impossible.