Photo Challenge this week is The Golden Hour. In photography, the “golden hour” is the first and last hour of sunlight of the day. Photographers venture out on sunrise hikes or sunset treks to capture a magical shot, due to the quality of the light during that time of day.
I am a big fan of sunsets as I am so *not* a morning person, and you can see them coming and plan ahead, so there are quite a few golden hour shots in my archive, tempted tho I am to include some actual sunsets (cos I have some pretty spectacular ones) here are some true golden hour shots, hope you enjoy 🙂
Golden light over Christchurch CBD Construction Zone – click to embiggen
Oamaru Harbour Breakwater and Lighthouse – click to embiggen
Toi Toi at Travis Wetlands – click to embiggen
Sidelit sheep at Waikari on the way to Hanmer Springs
And my personal Golden Hour favourite shot – I was walking to one of my usual sunset shooting areas, luckily wearing my glasses and I saw this handsome fellow perched on the bridge, and setup for the shot with my trusty 70-200mm so as not to scare him off.
Golden Hour Heron Silhouette at the Estuary – click to embiggen
Learning to See Light 
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Fabulous photographs! Thank you for sharing these, it’s made my day! 🙂
Ishaiya
Like the Travis Wetlands shot and it doesn’t get much better than the last silhouette shot…nice post.
Thanks, it is a particular fave that last shot 🙂
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I particularly like the lighting on the toi toi. Is it some kind of a wild grass? Have you considered cropping the heron picture to give the bird more prominence?
Toi Toi is similar to pampas grass, its a very tall grass (5-7ft tall clumps) that flowers in summer. I hear what you say about the heron shot but I kinda like that he is a treat for someone who pays a bit more attention to the shot, that person will notice him 🙂 Also I like the whole compostion of the rest of it, its actually quite cropped already 🙂
You are in charge of your pics 🙂
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Incredible images! I especially like the lighthouse one. 🙂
Thankyou, I had that one printed and given to the friend who kindly provided a vehicle for that trip as I had smashed my car up a week before!
Glad you were ok!
“watching the light go all warm and delicious” – that’s exactly what it does! 🙂
beautiful photographs! I loved the first one, I guess it was clicked at the ‘golden minute’! 😉 🙂
I’d be glad if you take a look at my photographs for this prompt: http://blackandwhiteheart.wordpress.com/2013/07/18/weekly-photo-challenge-the-golden-hour/
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