Photographing people during the golden hour

Monday 3 April 2023, 20:02 by Nando Harmsen | 5,592 views | 11 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

You always want the most beautiful light for your photos. The golden hour is, of course, an excellent time for this. The light is at its most attractive then. How do you work when you want to photograph people during this time of day? I’ll list a few points.

For landscape photography, the golden hour is of course an ultimate time to take photos. Shadows are long, the light is soft and the colours are attractive. That colour is often golden yellow, hence the name golden hour, of course.

A landscape during the golden hour. The light is almost always fairytale-like at this time. You can also photograph perfectly atmospheric portraits during this time of day.
If you photograph portraits during this time of day, it can be a challenge. If you want to capture the golden light, you have to bear in mind that you may be dealing with quite a lot of backlighting. You probably know the result. Silhouettes, or a blown-out background.

There are a few things you can take into account. Especially when you are going to photograph portraits during this time of day. Think about the direction of the light, shadows, and perhaps fill flash.

1. Direction of the light

The direction of light is always important. There are essentially three types of light, backlight, frontal light and sidelight. Frontal light is often the only one that does not look good, although there are exceptions. Frontal light is the same as using flash frontally.

Frontal light usually does not look good. But sidelight certainly does, as in this portrait. Use shadows to create beautiful depth.
With sidelight, you can work with beautiful shadows. Especially during the golden hour, those shadows are long. The shadows create beautiful depth. Think of sunlight as the light from a flash, and position your model for the most beautiful shadows.

Your model can also cast shadows on a wall or on the road. Make use of that. You only get these long shadows during the golden hour.
Backlighting is more difficult, because you often have to deal with extremely bright light and extreme darkness. If you find a good balance, backlighting can look very beautiful. You can also use flares to give your photos a special atmosphere.

2. Make use of silhouettes

With backlighting in particular, you are dealing with a great deal of contrast. Either your model is correctly exposed and the background is overexposed, or the background is correctly exposed and your model is in silhouette. Why not keep the model in silhouette?

Do not be afraid of silhouettes. Make sure you have an attractive background. That is very important for this type of photo.
A silhouette can actually be very striking. Make sure you use a beautiful setting, though, otherwise it will not work. Special poses can work well, with shape being very important. Play with see-through clothing and let your model wave it so that the light passes through it.

3. Use your camera's dynamic range

Do you want the model and the background to be correctly exposed? Then use your camera's dynamic range. Expose for the brightest part, and lift the darker areas later in your favourite photo software.

If you do not want a silhouette, use the camera's dynamic range and brighten the darker areas in post-processing. This gives you very atmospheric images.
By exposing for the bright areas, you make use of EttR (Exposure to the Right). But bear in mind that brightening darker areas can cause extra noise in that area. If you do not want that, use fill flash.

4. Use fill flash

Fill flash can prevent silhouettes. It allows you to create a good balance between the exposure of the background and the model. You can do this with a flash on the camera, but an off-camera flash is even better. This is called strobist photography.

If you do not want to brighten dark areas, use fill flash. Here I used a large octabox on the left. The camera's exposure is set for the background, and the flash for the model.
By setting the camera's exposure for the background, you ensure a perfect exposure of the background. You then use the flash to light your model. You should see these two exposures as two separate things, which you can set independently of each other.

By finding a good balance between ambient light and flash light, a photo like this can look very natural. If necessary, use a yellow filter (CTO filter) to give the flash light a nice colour too. This prevents cold flash light during the warm golden colours of the golden hour.

Do you have any more tips?

These are just four tips for photographing a model during the golden hour. With these, you can achieve beautiful results that are very atmospheric.

Perhaps you also have tips that guarantee beautiful photos during the golden hour. I invite you to post them in a comment below this article.

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About the author

Nando Harmsen has been photographing for more than 40 years. He specialises in wedding photography and landscape photography. Nando also gives talks, workshops, masterclasses and photo trips, and regularly reviews new and interesting equipment.

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11 comments

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 12:13 | reply
Instead of fill flash, you can also work with a (gold-colored) reflector, but then you do need an assistant 😃 and there must be enough reflected light left.
Translated from Dutch.

Lauran wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 13:25 | reply
If you're going to work on location you can't do without assistants.
In any case always a muah but also people to set everything up and take it down. Haulers etc.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 14:21 | reply
You can also manage perfectly well without assistants on location. It isn't always necessary to have or use a lot of equipment. One tripod, one light, one umbrella can already be enough.
For large projects it's a different story. Then it's very useful to have a few extra pairs of hands.
Translated from Dutch.

Donald Willemsen wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 14:52 | reply
@Nando, I agree with you. Not every shoot has to be carried out super professionally if it's not an assignment for third parties, but simply for the pleasure of photography. You give a number of good tips that every photographer, amateur or aspiring professional, can benefit from. The real art is to still take a beautiful photo with as few resources as possible. The main thing is creativity and knowing what you're doing.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 15:18 | reply
Even more so. A one-(wo)man-show can also be quite professional. Otherwise wedding photographers, for example, would have a big problem.
In other words, a team is needed when it is needed. It is never a requirement for good results.
Translated from Dutch.

Lauran wrote on Tuesday 4 April 2023 at 17:30 | reply
When you are hired, quality is expected. A team takes a lot of work off your hands.
Translated from Dutch.

Nando wrote on Wednesday 5 April 2023 at 11:44 | reply
Indeed. A team takes a lot of work off your hands. That doesn't mean you can't do without one, right?
Translated from Dutch.

ErikvanRosmalen wrote on Wednesday 5 April 2023 at 07:30 | reply
I'm on both the hiring side and work on assignment myself. As long as you're not in the (high) fashion corner, well over 95% of photographers come on their own. So saying that you can't do without assistants is really not true.
Translated from Dutch.

Damien Franscoise wrote on Wednesday 5 April 2023 at 09:18 | reply
Is it a coincidence that I come across virtually the same article on another website where he posted it a day later than it was posted here? Too many similarities for it to be a coincidence, it seems to me... https://fotograaf-huren.nl/personen-fotograferen-in-het-gouden-uurtje
Translated from Dutch.

Elja Trum wrote on Wednesday 5 April 2023 at 09:36 | reply
That is indeed ordinary theft. The paragraphs have been rewritten (probably by ChatGPT), but that is not exactly proper. I sent them a message about it. Thanks for reporting it.
Translated from Dutch.

Damien Franscoise wrote on Wednesday 5 April 2023 at 09:43 | reply
You're welcome Elja! I see a bizarre amount of content from them (with a hint of ChatGPT on top) passing by, but this one seemed very familiar to me. Hopefully you'll get a response from them!
Translated from Dutch.

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