“Harry looked down and saw deep green mountains and lakes, coppery in the sunset.” ― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
One of the most coveted times to shoot is during the golden hour when the sun is low in the sky. During this time the light casts soft shadows and has a flattering colour. The problem is that there is a limited time to exploit this (early morning and late afternoon) and you are subject to weather conditions that further complicate this.
For early shoots, there are apps that will tell you when sunrise is and when the golden hour is, but even with all that we cant always rely on the sun. When mother nature fails then pull out a strobe and a CTO gel to fake the sunset colour. Some examples of this are below. The look can be made more authentic with additional colour grading in photoshop. I will do that in the future and post updates.
This is not a late evening photography shoot in Oakville Ontario. It is actually an overcast midday, but the photographer (me) created the bright sun through the trees in this shot with a single Einstein 640 strobe and an orange gel. The light stand was removed by photoshop clone stamp.
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The same strobe was placed directly behind our subject to give a yellow glow through here hair to create a backlit golden hour portrait.
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Equipment used:
- Nikon D810
- Nikon 85mm F1.4G and Sigma 50mm Art lens
- Paul C Buff Einstein 640
- 10 ft Light stand extended full height to be above cedar hedge
- Pau C Buff Mini Vagabond power supply
- CTO Gel
In this shot the light being cast from outside is a nikon SB900 with an orange gel. This was a multiple light set up with main subject also lit from camera left with an SB600 and umbrella.
Artificial Golden Hour created with flash
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Sketchy list for this because it was too long to remember all details.
- Camera was a D90
- Lens probably a Nikon 28-105 macro
- Flashes were SB600 and SB900 triggered by on camera flash set up as a commander for Nikon Creative Lighting System
- probably the SB600 with a shoot through umbrella on camera left
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