Tom Glander Media

Golden Hour, Blue Hour, Twilight – Mastery

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by

Tom
in
The above watercolor is the product of a Google search. The image is explained in greater detail below.

The available light from the Sun varies with the time of day. We can differentiate 7 periods of time:

  1. Golden Hour
  2. Blue Hour
  3. Civil Twilight
  4. Nautical Twilight
  5. Astronomical Twilight
  6. Daytime
  7. Nighttime

Other than Blue Hour, each can be divided into degrees based on the elevation angle, as follows:

  1. Golden Hour (positive 6 degrees)
  2. Civil Twilight (negative 6 degrees)
  3. Nautical Twilight (negative 12 degrees)
  4. Astronomical Twilight (negative 18 degrees)

Daytime is greater than 6 degrees elevation angle.
Nighttime is greater than negative 18 degrees.

Finding the degrees is simple with an app. I use Planit Pro which is exquisite in the data it provides for all things related to the earth and sky.

And what about Blue Hour? That is the the “hour” just before sunrise, and just after sunset. It occurs when the sun is below the horizon, but its light still illuminates the atmosphere, causing a scattering effect that favors the blue color spectrum, thus the term “blue hour.”

I created folders on my computer with the various titles of the events, then organize shots into these folders for evalution. All astrophotography and land astrophotography is shot in RAW for later development in Lightroom.

No particular order
In no particular order lie the folders upon the solid state hard drive.

Creating organizational structures and using them keeps me sane as I have complete control over this aspect of life. It’s great for mental health.

Below is a timelapse I shot that started around golden hour and ended up in nighttime. See how the sun is almost at the horizon in the thumbnail shot below.

This is a reading from Aesop’s Fables, and the storyline has nothing to do with the photography. Which is weird, when you start to think about it. I’m not an animator, nor do I like taking various still images and compositing them into a storyline. So this will have to do as an example.

THE TO DO LIST

Speaking of examples, I need to shoot several photos at the different “hours” of photographic day to night possibilitiy based on the elevation angle at a given time, then compile everything into a video. I’ll put this on my list of things to accomplish.