Blue Hour

Outdoor dog photographers have a their environmental challenges when planning and photographing. One of these is selecting a time that’s optimal for light: early morning or late in the day. However, get this wrong and you’re scrambling for angles and exposures. Yes, even professionals get this wrong. I did. Here’s the story.

My client chose a mountain setting during the winter. We arranged this during Christmas holidays, Dec. 31. What I didn’t think of, at that location, is that the sun is very very low during the winter months, especially in December! We were ready first thing in the morning, but we ran into the blue hour.

The Blue Hour: a brief, twilight period just before sunrise, casting a cool, deep blue or moody hue across the sky and landscape. In the mountains, the blue hour can continue as the sun peeks around the mountains. Our first hour was blue. All blue. Blue and shades of purple. Everywhere. And we fought for light.

Nature photographers need to be flexible and inventive enough to pivot. (Yikes, this takes confidence at the moment.) So I went into mental overdrive, assessed what we had, and started shooting.

I’m so glad this happened! I learned so much about this session: winter sun angles and timing, mountain challenges in winter, playing with color and how to remain positive, always. The results are from pushing myself out of any comfort zone I had, but I loved the opportunity with my client and her dog.

What do you think of the results? They’ve been scattered throughout my latest FB and Instagram posts. Look for the very cooperative black labradoodle, snow and of course, mountains.