You’re the one I want to be with, when the sun goes down.

When we think of family photography sessions, we often think of mother, fathers and children bathed in the lovely golden light of the Golden Hour.  I love the quality of this light just before and just after sunset, and most of my sessions are done during this beautiful golden hour.

But there is also so much beauty to be found in the hour that follows – the Blue Hour.  The blue hour is the period of twilight in the late dusk each evening when the sun is at a significant distance below the horizon and the residual, indirect sunlight takes on a predominantly blue hue.

In this light, images come to life in a different way.  In the deep and grainy depth of the post sunset sky tones and color are redefined in a lovely, timeless style that gets right to the emotion of the moment.

Blue hour sessions are risky – the light disappears so quickly!  But with every risk comes reward.

The session below began in the final minutes of the Golden Hour, and continued until we were down to nothing more than the last light of the Blue Hour.

I did almost the whole session at ISO 2000 and I was opened up to 2.8…..letting in as much of this luminous light as possible.  The images have a softer, vintage feel due to the high ISO and shallow depth of field.

As light bends and changes throughout the day there is always something different you can pull from it’s qualities.

The Golden Hour will always be my trusted go-to, but it what a treat it is to shoot in that Blue Hour and squeeze every last bit of beauty out of the day’s light.