The Magic Hour

Or, the Magic Hour-and-a-half, depending on who you ask. Some claim it's the hour after sunrise and before sunset plus the half-hour before sunrise and after sunset. Others say its simply the first and last hours of daily sunlight. Either way, the Magic Hour (also known as the Golden Hour) is the time of day when the sun is low in the sky and offers a direct, warm, golden glow while also providing dramatic shadows and contrast. Some photographers only take out their cameras during that time.

 

Getting the exposure right can be surprisingly tricky during the magic hour, especially when photographing people (and definitely when the subject is running around and moving in and out of the light, as is our little friend in these examples). For landscapes, matrix-metering would give you generally good results, but in this situation I tend to use center-weighted, and occasionally even spot-meteing (usually to keep the highlights in Ollie's golden locks from blowing-out).

Back-lighting can be particularly effective during the magic hour, as in the final photo above, provided you nail the exposure. In this case I used center-weighted metering and didn't worry about the back-lit highlights in Oliver's hair blowing out, because that is the desired effect, after all. Fortunately, center-weighted metering gives a modicum of attention to the areas outside of the center of the scene, so there is still enough detail in the highlights to make this a well-balanced image.