Golden Hour: The Best Time of Day to Schedule your Outdoor Portrait Session
How awesome would it be to be able to schedule your outdoor photo session around your child’s schedule, rather than your photographer’s? I mean, personally, as a mom I’m thinking about avoiding any possible times where my child could be hungry or tired. I also need enough time to feed them, get them ready, and then drive them to the shoot. So as a mom I would vote for starting a photo session around 10-11am or 2-3pm. Sounds great, right? Then your photographer sends you an email and says, “Let’s start at either 6am or 7:30pm.” And you’re like…..Does this woman even know what it’s like to have small children?!
Actually, I do, so I completely understand that I’m asking a lot from my clients! It’s not because I am booked every other hour of the day or because those are simply the most convenient times in my personal schedule. I have chosen those times, specifically, because if we are blessed with a beautiful sunny day, the hour immediately after the sun rises and the hour before it sets will give your portraits the softest and most flattering lighting. Yes, this means I research the time of the sunrise or sunset before I propose a start time for any outdoor session.
Photographers call these two hours of the day the “Golden Hour.” The light is warmer and the shadows are softer, which will make for a more attractive portrait than one where we’re fighting the harshness of the noonday sun. Also, a bonus, in my opinion, is that you have an opportunity to capture beautifully colored skies or sun flares in the background to add a little magic to your portraits.
I tell my clients that I know these early morning or late evening sessions aren’t ideal, especially with younger children. However, if you can make it work, either by adjusting their sleep/nap schedule in advance or by promising a reward afterward, the quality of the portraits you will receive will make all of it so worthwhile in the end.
And to illustrate this, I took my ever-so-willing 3- and 5-year-old out to the North Shore to show you the difference. The situation where this would be most problematic is if you’re trying to get a specific background.
These photos were taken around 6pm (1.5 hours before sunset).
Notice in the top images, their backs are almost turned toward the sun. This helped reduce the harshness of the shadow, although I had to overexpose the sky a little so the shadow on their faces wasn’t so dark. And my son still has bright spots on the side of his head and his nose.
In the bottom pictures, I wanted the backdrop to be more of the city than the bridge, which put the sun directly to their right, and you can see the huge difference between the light and shadows on their faces. Also, without sunglasses, they don’t particularly enjoy looking toward the photographer when the sun is so bright in their peripheral vision, as you can see eye squinting and arms up to block the sun in the last image.
And these are the photos I took 40 minutes later (50 minutes before sunset).
Notice how much softer these shadows are, and the highlights in their hair are bright but not overexposed.
It’s in this soft light that you can take a portrait at pretty much any angle without getting a squinty-eyed grimace. So if you have super active kids like mine who get grumpy when you tell them to stay in one spot, this light means they can run around, and no matter what angle I take the photo, the light will look great.
These two photos were taken in completely opposite directions, both into the light and away from the light, yet both make for great light.
This isn’t to say that it’s impossible to schedule a session outside the golden hour. However, we would want to stick primarily to shady spots, which would limit background options, like this photo taken in the shade on the bridge soon after the first four photos were taken.
Either that, or if your child will stay at the perfect angle, we can put their backs to the sun and get that glow of overexposed rim light around their hair.
These were taken at 9:30am (3 hours after sunrise).
However, you’ll still risk the sun’s reflection being so bright, that it makes the subject squint against the light.
So please keep all of this in mind when you’re considering the best time of year to schedule your outdoor portrait session, because the sun sets much later in the summer months! Depending on your session length, you can expect evening portrait times to start anytime within these ranges during the following months depending on the length of the session:
June-July: 7:00-8:00pm
May/August: 6:00-7:30pm
April/September: 5:00-6:30pm
October: 4:00-6:00pm
November: 3:00-5:00pm
I know you’re probably looking at these times and thinking, “Wow, starting a session at 7:30 means not wrapping up till around 8:30 at night? That’s definitely going to interfere with bedtime.” Trust me, mamas, the memories captured and the photos you end up with will be worth the struggle of keeping your little ones up a little later for one day!
Check out the gorgeous Golden Hour light we had for Kenley’s evening princess session to see more examples of how the light helps add to the portrait! Click here to see the blog post.