“Am I blue…?”
The Blue Note
The blue hour is less well-known than the golden hour, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its advantages.
The phrase simply refers to the hour just before sunrise or just after sunset when the colour of the light is generally ‘cooler’.
In this article, I’ll show you a few of the benefits of this time of day and give you some ideas for the kinds of shots to take.
Cold
The most obvious advantage of the golden hour is the ‘coldness’ of the light.
I use inverted commas here because the colour temperature of blueish light is actually higher than the colour temperature of reddish light!
How can that be?
Well, it’s a convention to call it ‘cold’ because we associate the colour with things that are cold things that are blue such as icebergs.
In fact, there are plenty of other things that are hot when they are blue rather than cold.
Take Bunsen burners, for example: when you first light them with the air intake valve shut, the flame is yellow (and relatively ‘cold’), but when you open the valve, the flame turns blue (and becomes much hotter).
Anyway, we are where we are, so let’s continue talking about ‘cold’ light in the conventional sense.
Animals can look more appealing when lit by yellow, orange or red light, particularly certain mammals that already have a ‘golden’ coat, such as the big cats in Africa.
However, if you’re taking pictures in polar latitudes or if you just want to give a sense of the coldness of the environment, then the blue hour can work in your favour (see below).
Sealed with a Kiss
Seals and penguins tend to be most plentiful in the Antarctic, so that’s an obvious ‘fit’.
I took this shot on Salisbury Plain in South Georgia just after sunset, and the blue colour cast suggests the harshness of the conditions.
Loneliness
The word ‘blue’ can be used metaphorically to mean ‘sad’ or ‘lonely’, and you can use that connection in your wildlife images.
Try isolating a single subject during the blue hour to suggest the loneliness of its life or the isolation of the environment.
Here, a lone American oystercatcher is burying its beak in its feathers in order to protect it from the cold, but the ‘warmth’ of the yellow eye surrounded by a red ring provides a nice contrast with the blue sea and the cool overall tone.
Beak-catcher
Sky
One option you obviously don’t have during the blue hour (as opposed to the golden hour) is to include the sun in your shots.
However, a cloudy sky can be very important in emphasising the cool, blue colour cast as it has a neutral tone.
Clouds are white or grey, so the ‘blueness’ of the light is more obvious than when it illuminates an object that is already blue, say.
In this shot, the colour palette appears to be entirely made up of different shades of blue, but a lot of those tones are actually grey or white areas that simply look blue due to the coolness of the light during the blue hour.
Ice, Ice, Baby…
Silhouettes
Just because the sun’s not visible during the blue hour doesn’t mean you can’t create silhouettes.
All you need to do is shoot towards the brightest part of the sky.
The overall tone of the image will obviously be ‘cooler’, but there’s a place for that, too.
I like this shot of a cheetah in silhouette partly because of the blue colour cast that suggests the solitary and perhaps lonely nature of the cheetah’s life.
Cool Cat
Water
Another way to emphasise the ‘blueness’ of the light is to fill the frame with objects that are blue, such as the sea or a lake - and if your subject is blue, too, then all the better!
Wetness tends to go together with coldness very well, so it’s easy to suggest how hard life can be when you shoot in a cold, wet environment such as South Georgia.
These three king penguins look pretty cold and miserable as they trudge off towards the sea over the wet sand, but, again, the flashes of yellow on their necks create a nice contrast that hints at the possible ‘warmth’ within…
We Three Kings
And that’s it!
I hope these tips were helpful. Good luck making the most of the blue hour…
If you’d like to order a framed print of one of my wildlife photographs, please visit the Prints page.
If you’d like to book a lesson or order an online photography course, please visit my Lessons and Courses pages.