I love the golden hour – that hour before sunset when the light warms up your surroundings and everything is so soft and cozy. Oh that Golden Light. I love the way the light illuminates and spreads over my kids’ faces. When shooting at this hour, I like to open up my aperture to soften the edges and create a buttery feel to my images. I’ll go up 1-2 stops in my exposure to really let the light in. This will usually blowout the background a little but I like the way the light hugs my subject.
In the first shot below, I had Malia follow my camera so the sun hit her at the back of her head, just over her left shoulder. The sun backlights her head, separating her from the background. She wasn’t too thrilled with me interrupting her castle building, but I still love the way the light surrounds her. This was shot with my 50mm at 100 ISO, f2.5 and 1/160 sec.
For the second image, I actually shot Maxim facing the sun. I lost the detail in his face with the sun blowing it out, but I’m okay with that for this image. I like the way he turned towards the sun, allowing it to warm up and kiss his face. It makes me think he enjoys sunsets as much as his mommy does. Shot at 100 ISO, f1.4 and 1/800 sec.
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