Northern IL Photographer – The ‘Golden Hour’. Why to schedule your photography sessions around sunrise and sunset.

So you want to learn about golden hour, huh? It’s a pretty popular time of day for photographers to shoot. I’ll tell you what it is and why we prefer this time of day to others. Hopefully by the end I’ll have you convinced to schedule sessions around sunset. If that’s late for the little ones, have no fear, sunrise is another option. – Northern IL Photographer

You may or may not have noticed that I encourage sessions in the evening before sunset or in the morning after sunrise. The time before the sun goes down is called the ‘Golden Hour.’ During this time, the lighting is absolutely perfect. I’ll bet you can guess the next perfect time. Absolutely, morning, light coming up or going down is good and flattering. Light hovering in the middle is a little more harsh and unflattering. We want soft, warm, and dreamy light!

Another fun perk about those times is the option for silhouette portraits. If this is on your list, let me know! There are so many creative options for silhouettes.

The sunset perks:

• You get yummy light flares and beautiful soft light.
• There are no squinty eyes from the blinding sun at high noon.
• In the summer the morning and evening hours tend to be cooler when the sun isn’t beating down.
• During Golden Hour, everything looks warm and pretty and gives off a magical feeling.
• We can also get some sweet silhouette shots as the sun is going down on the horizon.

The morning is pretty darn beautiful too! It’s just backwards of sunset. So if you’re looking for silhouettes we’ll have to meet up a little earlier. Otherwise, for traditional portraits we schedule for 2 hours after sunrise. Although that sounds early, it’s really not. Here in Ingleside right now in October sunrise is close to 7:30. Meeting 2 hours after that means 9:30 and a cutely dressed family for the remainder of the day. The examples above are sunset, below are sunrise. Tell me the difference.

I hope I have convinced you to put more thought into your session planning. Schedules get busy and time just keeps passing by. Get the most out of your session, and schedule around sunset or sunrise.

Do you want to know more about sessions and packages? Check out the details here.

If you are interested in booking a session, please call 815-621-7077, e-mail casi@casiannphotography.com, or fill out the inquiry on the contact page here for more information.

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