Golden hour gives you roughly 20 to 40 minutes of the most flattering natural light you’ll ever work with, and most photographers waste at least half of it. The light changes fast, the window is short, and if you haven’t planned the session around it, you’ll spend the best minutes scrambling for a location instead of shooting. These 10 tips are what we use on every outdoor portrait and wedding session to make sure we come away with images that actually use the light rather than just happen to be taken in it.
What is golden hour in photography?
Golden hour is the period just after sunrise or just before sunset when the sun sits low on the horizon. Because the light travels through more atmosphere at that angle, it scatters, softens, and shifts toward warm amber and orange tones. The result is directional light with reduced contrast, which flatters skin, creates natural rim lighting on hair, and gives landscapes a depth that overhead midday sun simply cannot produce. Most photographers mean the pre-sunset window when they say “golden hour,” though the post-sunrise version offers the same quality of light with far fewer people around.
That said, the name is a bit generous. On a clear day with an unobstructed horizon, you may get a full 30 to 45 minutes of usable warm light. In a canyon, near tall buildings, or with cloud cover rolling in, you might have 10. The practical implication: scout first, shoot second.
Overview of the golden hour photography tips
Here are the concepts we’ll be covering in this article.
- Be patient with timing and plan ahead
- Shoot against the light (with the sun as backlight)
- Don’t forget to also shoot with the light
- Work with sun flares
- Capture the full scene and story (wide/medium/tight)
- Use manual white balance
- Use a lower (wider) aperture
- Capture silhouettes in the sunset
- Recreate your own with flash if necessary
- Avoid common golden hour mistakes
Be patient with timing and plan ahead
The most important tip for shooting during golden hour is to be patient and plan ahead. By planning ahead, you can ensure that you’ll have the time to set up your shot and won’t miss the perfect light. In your planning, be sure to know the following:
- What time the sun sets
- Where exactly the sun sets (using the Sun Seeker app)
- Whether there are any mountains or buildings that could obstruct your view of the sunset
It’s also important to be patient as the light changes throughout the golden hour. The best light often occurs right before the sun dips below the horizon — not 20 minutes earlier when most photographers are still working through their pose list. If you’re on a client shoot, it’s easy to panic or rush the session and burn through all of your poses and locations before the light reaches its peak. Hold something back for those final minutes.
Shoot against the light (using the sun as backlight)
One of the most flattering and interesting lighting scenarios for portrait photographers is to shoot with the golden hour sun behind your subject. This creates a beautiful halo or rim light around your subject’s hair, which can really make them pop in the photo.
For backlit golden hour portraits, expose for the subject’s face rather than the bright background. You’ll likely need to open up 1 to 1.5 stops from what the meter suggests, or use a small amount of fill flash to lift the shadows without killing the mood. Our lighting guide covers the exact fill flash ratios we use for this setup.
Don’t forget to also shoot with the light
While the gorgeous backlight on your subject will likely be the best choice for most of your golden hour portraits, don’t forget to turn around and get a few images with the sun as well. This soft, warm front light is flattering in its own way, and the slightly squinting expressions it produces can actually read as natural and relaxed rather than forced.
Work with sun flares
Shooting into the sun can create some beautiful lens flares. These can either be avoided or embraced as part of the image. Avoid the flares by shooting from a shaded area where there is no direct light entering the lens. Embrace them by letting the light flow into the lens, making sure to adjust the overall exposure as you see in the image above.
Honestly, the decision to embrace or avoid flares is largely a stylistic one — but the execution matters. If you’re going for a flare, position the sun at the edge of the frame or partially behind your subject’s head. A flare dead-center with nothing else going on just reads as an exposure mistake. Use it as an accent, not the whole story.
Capture the full scene and story (wide/medium/tight)
As with all of your photography, remember to shoot for the story. This means getting a variety of wide, medium and tight photos that bring cohesiveness and context to the set of images. It may even mean getting images of just the scene without any subjects in the photo — a wide establishing shot of the landscape bathed in golden light tells the story of the moment before you ever show the couple.
Use manual white balance
Golden hour lighting can often trick your camera’s auto white balance, resulting in an image that is either too blue (the camera tries to neutralize the warm tones) or too orange (it overcorrects the other way). By setting your white balance manually, you stay in control of the mood. Start with a white balance of around 6000K–6500K — roughly the Kelvin range of the cloudy or shade preset on your camera — and adjust from there based on how the light actually looks on your LCD. Shooting RAW gives you the flexibility to fine-tune in post, but starting close in-camera saves time and gives you a more accurate exposure histogram to work from.
Use a lower aperture and maximize bokeh
When shooting portraits during golden hour, a low, wide open aperture of f/2.8 or lower — ideally f/2.0 and below — creates a shallow depth of field that turns those warm background tones into soft, creamy bokeh. The dreamy quality of the light already sets a mood; the wide aperture intensifies it. We’ll typically shoot the majority of our golden hour portrait sets at f/1.8 or f/2.0, stepping down to f/2.8 only for wider environmental shots where we want more of the scene sharp.
Capture silhouettes in the sunset
At some point in the golden hour session, there should be an opportunity to capture a silhouette of the subject. Position the subject so that the sun is behind them, then expose for the sky rather than the subjects — no fill light, no exposure compensation up. All you’ll retain is the shapes of their bodies against the color of the sky, which is often the single most dramatic image from the entire session.
Recreate your own golden hour if needed
If the weather is not cooperating or you can’t make the golden hour window, there are ways to create your own. We cover this extensively in the following articles:
With the right knowledge and tools, you can get a convincing golden hour look regardless of the time of day. If you want to go deeper on the flash setups, power ratios, and gel choices that make this work on real shoots, our Photography 101 training covers the full workflow from natural light fundamentals through off-camera flash techniques.
Avoid common golden hour mistakes
Here are a few common golden hour photography mistakes:
- Not location scouting properly — With timing being so important, it’s critical to scout the location. Golden hour could be much earlier or non-existent if something obstructs the view of the sunset, like a mountain or a building you didn’t account for.
- Being too hasty — Slow down. Focus on getting a series of great images with a variety of poses, expressions, and compositions in a single location rather than sprinting from spot to spot. Movement kills golden hour sessions faster than bad weather does.
- Overexposing the sky — Let some of your golden hour imagery sit a little darker and moodier. Blown-out skies lose the color that makes golden hour worth shooting for in the first place.
- Relying entirely on auto white balance — As covered above, AWB will often strip the warmth right out of the scene. Set it manually at 6000K–6500K and adjust from there.
For more portrait photography education and technique guides, explore our full Flash & Lighting Photography Guide or visit SLR Lounge Premium for complete course access.
Frequently asked questions about golden hour photography
What is golden hour in photography?
Golden hour is the short window of time just after sunrise or just before sunset when the sun is low on the horizon. The light during this period is softer, more directional, and warmer in tone than midday light, making it especially flattering for portraits, landscapes, and wedding photography. The actual duration varies by location and season — anywhere from 10 minutes to nearly an hour.
What is the best white balance for golden hour?
A manual white balance setting of 6000K to 6500K is a reliable starting point for golden hour photography. This roughly matches the cloudy or shade preset on most cameras and preserves the warm tones rather than letting auto white balance neutralize them. Shoot RAW and adjust in post if needed, but starting close in-camera gives you a more usable histogram and a truer preview of the final image.
What aperture should I use for golden hour portraits?
For golden hour portraits, shooting at f/1.8 to f/2.8 gives you the shallow depth of field that turns warm background tones into soft bokeh. Most portrait photographers prefer f/1.8 or f/2.0 for tighter shots of one or two subjects, stepping up to f/2.8 for slightly wider frames or small groups where you need more depth in focus.
How do I recreate golden hour lighting with flash?
To recreate golden hour with flash, use a CTO gel on a strobe or speedlight positioned low and to the side of your subject to mimic the angle and warmth of setting sun. Set your camera’s white balance to tungsten or a low Kelvin value so the ambient background goes cool while the gelled flash renders warm. The contrast between the cool background and warm subject light is what sells the effect.
