True blue scenic shots
Mike Harris shoots the blue hour, proving sunrise and sunset aren’t the be-all and end-all of landscapes
We’re willing to bet there isn’t a landscape photographer in all the land who doesn’t love to photograph sunset. But this jaw-dropping spectacle isn’t the be-all and end-all of landscape photography. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen fellow photographers pack up once the lion’s share of the gorgeous golden light has gone, only to trudge back to their cars during the encore: blue hour.
Blue hour occurs before sunrise and after sunset, and tends to last less than 30 minutes. This incredible phenomenon happens during civil twilight, when the sun is between four and six degrees below the horizon. The longer wavelengths of red light fly into the Earth’s atmosphere and out the other side while the shorter blue wavelengths hit the atmosphere and scatter, shrouding the landscape in those distinctive cool hues.
You can calculate when blue hour will occur at a given location with planning apps like Photopills, but as with any landscape shoot, it’s worth turning up ahead of time so you can prepare your kit and frame a good composition before the main event.
Shooting blue hour doesn’t require any special techniques, but darker conditions make a tripod a must. It’s also worth spending a bit of time in postproduction really honing those gorgeous blue hues.
Our image was captured after a rather unspectacular sunset, so make sure you allow enough time to capture blue hour on your next sunrise or sunset shoot.
Steadfast shots
The sun’s position below the horizon means you’ll need to use longer exposures to gather enough light, making a tripod essential. As with most landscapes an aperture of f/8 to f/11 will stand you in good stead and a remote shutter release or self-timer will help mitigate camera shake.
Local adjustments
Local adjustments allow you to target specific areas of your image. Select the masking icon (Shift+w) and choose your preferred masking tool. We used the Brush to mask the sky before reducing its exposure and applied a Radial Gradient over the lighthouse, increasing the exposure to make it pop against the darker backdrop.
Blue hour bracket
Our lighthouse subject was looking a little lost within the dark background, due to the flat lighting. We remedied this by shooting a five-shot bracket sequence and creating an HDR image in Adobe Lightroom. The additional dynamic range made the image much more pliable in post.
Blue boost
Finish by enhancing the blue tones and selectively sharpening the subject. We used the Hsl/color panel to slide the blue Hue slider towards aqua (-5) and then reduced the blue Saturation slider (-3). In the Details panel we increased the Amount slider (66) and set the Masking slider (100) so only the most defined edges (mostly on the lighthouse) were sharpened.
Timing
Blue hour happens when the sun is below the horizon, so it precedes sunrise and follows sunset and usually lasts around half an hour. You can use apps like Photopills to determine when blue hour will happen at your chosen location, but we’d always recommend arriving ahead of time so that you have plenty of time to set up.
Basic edits
Aim to embrace your image’s natural blue hour hue, without making it appear fabricated. We began with a few global adjustments via the Basic panel by boosting the Exposure, Shadows and Dehaze sliders and darkening the Blacks. A subtle S-curve was then created in the Tone Curve panel.