Golden Hour
The golden hour refers to the time before, during and after the sunrise or sunset when you get spectacular or beautifully subtle colour in the sky and reflections off trees, buildings, people, etc.
I went out before sunset with my friend, Diane the other night which reminded me that sunset really is getting earlier every night. We left at 6:15 p.m. and found a hilltop perch so we could get high enough to see the skyline without trees and buildings getting in the way and blocking the sunset effects. I still am going to scout around for various viewpoints.
She is great to go out with because we goof around and take funny or embarrassing pictures of each other and laugh a lot, plus I am inspired by how she sees things from various points of view. Being inspired is so much better than being jealous or envious.
There were some challenges in getting the blue in the sky to show with all the orange. To solve this, I tried different exposures then settled on shooting in Tungsten White Balance. Also there were power lines in the view so I chose to evade them and in one case,did a major crop. I find that for night shooting I get the best results using Shutter Priority or in Canon terms, Tv, which stands for Time Value. I tend to go dark because I get better saturation of colour in the sky, closer to what I actually see.
After downloading, using Lightroom I heightened contrast to bring out the colour because I did not think the exposure gave the colour that I actually saw reflected off the trees. In other situations I did slight crops and straightening except for the high wires where I did a big crop. Had to use my healing brush for erasing dust spots which were prominent. Boo Hoo. Someone from the photo club has suggested HDR and higher exposure to show the details in the buildings with graduated filter for the sky. Lots more to explore and have fun with in the future.
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
©Jane Chesebrough
My Heartsong 
Jane ~Amazing captures you achieved on your outing with your friend Diane!! I love the fall colors in combination with the magical light quality of sunset. So enjoyed these ~ xR
October 7, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Oh Jane these are fantastic shots! Thank you.
October 7, 2012 at 8:34 pm
Love the vibrant colors in the leaves and grasses!
October 7, 2012 at 8:44 pm
Love the colors Jane!
October 8, 2012 at 7:24 am
you know everyone, when we went down the path and I saw the leaves lit up I literally said, “oh goodie! Look at the light!” and ran to a spot to set up my tripod and camera.Glad to share and happy you all like it. .
October 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm