Golden hour can elevate your portraits to a whole new level because it offers up stunning natural light like no other.

Its warm, soft glow makes our photos dreamy and captivating, with a summer vibe; what’s not to love?!

So here are three essential tips to help you capture perfect golden hour portraits. Enjoy!

1. Positioning Your Subjects

During golden hour, the angle of the sunlight can dramatically affect the mood and quality of your images.

To make the most of this magical light, position your subjects so that the sunlight is behind them to capture the glow behind them. Frame the shot so the sun is just out of frame or at the edge, filtering through trees or other foliage, or blocked by your subject’s head.

 

You can also side light during the golden hour and this can create a dramatic, directional golden hour portrait.

But don’t try it too early on; keep your eye out for bright light and strong shadow lines on the side of your subjects face. If you see this quality of light, it’s probably a little too early to side light. Stick with backlighting until the sun is lower in the sky.

Lens Flare & Haze

Personally I love both lens flares and haze. They really add to that dreamy feel and can even add a sense of mystery and whimsy.

But it can go wrong if you have too much and it obscures your subjects when you don’t want it to. So knowing how to create both, means you can intentionally control it.

Lens flares happen when the sun directly hits the inside of our lens. The more directly the sun hits your lens, the more haze and the stronger your flares will be.

To avoid them, use a lens hood or your hand to cup the lens and block it out.

Conversely if you want them, ditch the lens hood and shoot toward the sun, experimenting with micro adjustments of your angle until you like what you see. Sometimes it can be a matter of a mm adjustment to make all the different.

Related: 6 Backlight Photos to Try

 2. How to Choose Locations for Golden Hour Portraits

When it comes to golden hour photography, location is everything. Look for settings that offer interesting backdrops such as open fields, beaches, or urban landscapes. Think about how your location can enhance the mood and atmosphere of your portraits.

Also consider how the light will interact with your surroundings:

• Is there long grass you can use to create a sense of movement as the light catches it?
• Are there dense tall trees to create gorgeous bokeh? You can do this by shooting with the sun behind the trees and as its rays peaks through the gaps you’ll get that natural glitter!
• Are there any objects that will block the sun as it sets? There’s no point planning a golden hour portrait session in a field if the sun and all its glorious colour disappears completely behind a huge object such as a barn or silo.
• For urban locations, gritty architecture can look amazing. But as mentioned above, avoid locations with buildings that block the sunset.
• Is it typically a busy, popular location? If so you’ll probably have lots of people in  your background especially if it’s beautiful weather.
• Keep in mind that the golden hour light can vary depending on the geographical location and time of year, so scout out potential locations in advance to get the best results.

Related: How to Capture Breathtaking Golden Hour Photos

3. The Best Settings to Capture That Golden Glow

Exposure

Normally we’d always say aim to get your portraits perfect in camera, exposing for your subject’s skin. But for golden hour portraits, if you do that you’ll blow out the sky and lose all its beautiful colour.

To capture the fully beauty of golden hour, expose for the light and increase exposure on your subject’s skin in the editing. Most good quality cameras can capture enough detail in slightly underexposed skin so that you can increase it and still get beautiful results. But if you blow out the sky, it won’t be recoverable in processing.

Related: Get Out Of Auto Mode

Aperture

Use a wide aperture of around f/2 to f/2.8 to help your subject stand out from that hazy glow.

Shutter Speed & ISO

Use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze any motion of your subjects, and ISO to balance.

White Balance

While most cameras offer lots of options for white balance, I’ve always found the most reliable results come from using auto white balance, then tweaking it if needed in Lightroom.

Best Lens

Your best lens for golden hour portraits is one that can open up to wide apertures of f/2.8 or wider.

But if you only have a kit lens, you can totally take gorgeous golden hour portraits – just shoot with the lens at its widest focal length to enable you to shoot at it’s widest aperture (which would be f/3.5) and zoom in close with your feet instead.

Wide angle lenses of around 18-35mm will enable you to capture more of the scene and therefore more golden light. But whatever your favourite focal length is will work too.

Related: Beautiful Backlighting Secrets