Field notes · sunhour blog
Writing about light, twilight, and planning the shoot.
Photographer-leaning posts on golden hour, blue hour, the science of twilight, moon phases, and how to plan around them in any city on Earth. RSS.
Why the Magic Hour Is Marketing, and How It Differs From Golden Hour
The film industry called it magic hour; photographers called it golden hour; both meant slightly different things. Here is the actual distinction and why it matters.
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Reading the Timeline Strip on Sunhour
The timeline strip is the single most useful feature of sunhour. Once you can read it at a glance, you stop needing to memorise sunrise tables.
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The Maths Behind Sun Azimuth and Altitude, in Plain English
Two numbers — azimuth and altitude — completely describe where the sun is in the sky from your location. They are easier to understand than they sound.
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Best Apps and Tools for Outdoor Photographers
After a few years of outdoor shooting, your phone ends up with a stack of niche apps. Here are the ones that actually earn their place on the home screen.
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Polar Day and Polar Night: Why They Exist
Above 66.5 degrees the sun stops behaving. Polar day is weeks of unbroken sunlight; polar night is weeks where the sun never rises. Here is the geometry.
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Sunset Time for Any City: Why It Varies Between Two Streets
The official sunset time is for an idealised flat horizon at a single point. Real cities are not flat. Two friends in the same city can watch the sun set 18 minutes apart.
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How Daylight Saving Time Wrecks Your Shoot Plan (And the Workaround)
DST is a clock change, not a sun change. The sun keeps doing exactly what it was doing. The problem is that everything in your calendar is wrong by an hour.
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Solar Noon and Why Outdoor Portraits Look Terrible Then
Shooting portraits outdoors at solar noon is one of the most common rookie mistakes. The reasons are simple geometry, and the workarounds are equally simple.
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Wedding Ceremony Timing for Natural Light
If the venue is outdoor and the budget did not include a lighting kit, ceremony start time is the single most important photo decision. Pick wrong and the album is ugly.
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Plants and Seasonal Sun: a Quick Gardener's Guide
"Full sun" on a seed packet means six hours of direct light in midsummer. That number is a lie six months of the year. Here is how to read your garden's actual sun pattern.
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Need exact times for tonight's shoot? Open the sun calculator or browse 219 ready-made city pages.