Blue Hour is a term I coined about a year ago and it seemed to stick since then. I'm in the process of copyrighting the term as we speak so all of you who used this term in your photos will soon owe me money. I like that.
You may have heard of the Golden Hour. The Golden Hour is the hour right after sunrise or just before sunset in which the sun is low enough on the horizon to cast a warm, golden hue on everything in sight.
The Blue Hour is the hour right before sunrise or right after sunset. Actually, it starts about 20 minutes before sunrise and 20 minutes after sunset. It is a time of the day when the sun is far enough below the horizon to still cast light in the upper atmosphere for nothing directly visible to us.
What does this mean? It means we get to use long exposures to shoot photos of landscapes. Because we are shooting a long exposure we are exposing the sky which is still partially lit by the sun. The result: instead of a night photo with a pitch-black sky, we end up with a night photo with a deep blue sky.
A lot of people were surprised yesterday to realize they'd never shot a night-time B&W photo. I know that inspired more than a few to give it a go. Hopefully more people will have shot photos like this before but if not...get out there tonight and shoot it and post it!
Show us your night photos taken during the Blue Hour that feature deep blues in the skies overhead. Tell us your camera settings, if you know them, so we can see how you got this shot.
@dweezie I love these - especially the one on the top. :) @pwallis I quite like this shot of, what is it, a monument? It looks like you got a piece of Stonehenge or something. :)
Well, looking through my albums I realized that's something I really need to work on. Too bad I'm usually at the library during "blue hour". I only got two to show so far:
But I do have one of the "purple hour", too. Ever saw that @jasonbarnette ;)?
I have a purple hour not tweeked. We get purplish skies some times after the sun goes down...
F22 15second exposure iso 100
F22 13 sec exposure iso 200
ok heres a blue one... :) Sorry I saw the purple one up there and just had to share my purple ones lol
Is this blue hour?
f20 30 second exposure iso 800
I dont know if this is one either...
F3.5 exposure .002 Iso 100
@shortperson2002 I've never seen it purple before! That is gorgeous and amazing.
@smevvy So go shoot more :P During the summers there the sky stays lit for SOOOO long after sunset. I think I shot a photo at 11PM one night with blue skies!
@jasonbarnette hey, don't you worry, i will go shooting some more! problem we have now is that it's pitch black by 5:30 so i'd have to sneak out of work early to catch the blue hour (not saying that that won't be happening over the next few weeks!)
@neda haha thanks neda, i hadn't been on to see any discussions lately ... here tis :))
it wasn't long exposure, i was just lucky enough to get the brilliant blue hobart sky, just good timing :) but here are my settings:
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO Speed: 3200
From early on in my first year of the project. Unfortunately I don't get the chance to take photos atthis time of the day often, too busy with the nighttime routine with young kiddies!
During sunset there were 7 other photographers here, by the time I took this about an hour later I was the only one there. 1600 iso .4 sec @ 5.6 32mm focal length.
I deleted a not-so-interesting photo from my project to add this one in. I was especially happy with it because I was not using a tripod and had to hold VERRRYYY still to get it this good. Next time, I'm taking a tripod!
@jasonbarnette i love how none of my horizons are straight.. lol i'm scared of the dark so i don't have many night shots. lol we have man eating coyotes
@lilkitty90 So...take a man out there with you and make a sacrifice to the coyotes haha. Yeah I noticed your horizons...and they are driving me FREAKIN crazy.
@jasonbarnette sadly i don't have a talent for Horizons and never really notice them until AFTER my photos. even more sad these were taken on a tripod. lol instead of taking a man i went for the sunrise time. unfrotuantly all i got was orange and purple!
@lilkitty90 Did you say tripod? You had a tripod? The thing designed to make it easier to shoot level photos? OMG. Maybe if you'd had a man with you, the photo would have been level :P
@jasonbarnette hmm maybe its not that my photo isn't level.. maybe the world isn't level causing unforseen crooked horizons. everyone else just takes crooked photos to make their horizons look level :)
@lilkitty90 Bahaha...creative...but so lame! You do realize the world isn't flat, so I guess in a very small way your logic is sound. However, I'm leaning toward a different theory. I think you just walk crooked and so therefore what you think is flat is actually not :P
@jasonbarnette its a possibility lol i am under the impression one of my legs is shorter then the other. this could be the root of all of my problems! lol
@lilkitty90 See...you would think if you have realized this you would know you need to counteract your shorter leg be leaning the camera a little bit in the opposite direction. However...being a "kawntry" girl and all...I think you lean the camera in the wrong direction which only makes the tilt worse :P
@lilkitty90 OK...now *that* is the truth. Your photography is your photography. I posted a photo on Saturday (it's a nude selfie so I'd advise you not look haha) and I got a very mixed reaction to it. But I liked the photo, and that's what counts.
However...I'm confused about the statement "I'm likeable so its good." What does *that* have to do with crooked horizons???
@jasonbarnette hahaha if you remember i already looked and commented! lol i'm likeable so its good means idk what anyone thinks. and i know as a person i am likeable even if my photography isn't. lol
@lilkitty90 Ohshit that's right! And you fav'd it. That made me blush and that *never* happens. So you're final defense of your crooked horizons is that you're likeable and therefore the aesthetics of your photography don't matter? haha
@jasonbarnette aww sweet. :) yes my non aestheticly pleasing crooked horizons don't matter because people like ME for ME and not for my terrible photos. though i do love taking terrible photos. lol
@lilkitty90@lilkitty90 Stop. Taking. CROOKED. Photos. I'd like you so much more. Not saying that you aren't "likeable" now...just sayin' right now you're only at cruising altitude but if you did a little better job with those horizons you'd be in orbit haha.
@jasonbarnette honestly. i don't really have a photographers eye. i don't notice horizons until after i take my photos. i just try to capture my subject. i have a hard time figuring out what direction light comes from and where to stand to make sure the light hits it correctly. but i AM working on it. however i just love pointing and clicking haha. maybe if someone would buy me a REALLY nice SLR instead of my Cannon Powershot. lol
@lilkitty90 OK...I'm gonna have to know you a lot better and probably have many, many cocktails before I buy you a DSLR haha. But I know how you feel now. When I first started in photography I shot into the sunlight, my photos were either horribly under or overexposed, horizons crooked, I caught people blinking or their mouths wide open. Eventually...took about six months of hard work almost every day...I learned. Now it is second nature to me. I can shoot a photo, exposed well, straight, without even thinking about it. Sometimes I even surprise myself with how well I captured something haha.
You know I'm here to teach. That's one of hte reasons I joined this site: help others get naked...erm I mean help other shoot better photos! Haha. Sorry couldn't resist. I'm always here to help others.
@jasonbarnette hahaha no naked Selfies for me. at least not for a long ahile. as i said i'm not as confident. still working on that as well. lol i did have the chance to play with a DSLR and it was fabulous. lol but being a college student i am lacking in the Mullah for a nice Camera. however i do manage to get pretty decent with what i have sometimes.
@lilkitty90 People keep saying how confident I am and how brave and all that. Really...I don't feel it. I have a body, I don't care who sees me naked, obviously I don't care who sees my penis cause about 50% of the planet has one. And I think about 1% of the planet gets one from a surgery at some point. Eww. Honestly? I recommend it because it is very liberating. haha
Benefits of a meet-up: you could shoot photos with my DSLR all day. And one of my four lenses. Oh and my speedlights :P I used my financial aid refund my senior year to buy my first DSLR.
@jasonbarnette very true. but no one has YOURS. just sayin. lol these days i am thinking it is more then 1% lol and then there is the percentage born with a penis who have it removed. or stuffed in or whatever happens backstage.
THAT is the biggest benefit. lol DSLRgasm lol my instructor let me use his and 1 speedlight and left the room. and i was like uhh... where are the settings at on this thing. lol i would buy it with my financial aid but i don't think 500 bucks is enough for a DSLR unfortuantly.
@lilkitty90 LMAO. OK...yeah...no one has mine. Hadn't thought of it like that. Aaaaaand...let's not talk about how they do it haha. I went to see a documentary at a film festival once called Red & Blue. I thought the name sounded cool. Oh mean...it was a doc on twin brothers, both gay, but one of whom underwent a five year procedure to become a woman. It was an hour long :(
DSLRgasm? You are just full of new terms haha. And actually you can get a Nikon D80 or D70 for about $500. They aren't the best in the world, but hey that's what I started with ;)
@jasonbarnette hahaha interesting.. i like watching these kinds of things. i may have to go look that up.. just MAYBE....
i'm all about Megapixels lol how many Megapixels i can get in the cheapest DSLR
@lilkitty90 Oh...yeah...I see how it is. You're all about the size :P I think the D80 is 10MP. For about $500 used. Is that...ahem...good enough for you?
@jasonbarnette haha yes the more MP's that can fit in that tiny little masterpiece the better! lol idk my Powershot is 14 MP's so for now i'd probably use that only because i fully believe less MP's lowers the quality of the photos.
@lilkitty90 I would make some comment like the bigger the camera feels in your hands the more MP's but I'm not sure how you'd take that. So instead I'm not gonna say it at all. Nope. My D300 with a battery grip is pretty big, and it's 12MP.
Would you be shocked to learn I spent the first year of my career shooting for magazines like Southern Living, Budget Travel, and Travel + Leisure with a Nikon D200 at 10MP? People always think higher resolution is more important but it's not.
Sorry for talking so much! P&S cameras have higher resolutions because the sensors focus on resolution over power. You can't strap a 300mm lens onto a P&S and then fire off 8 frames per second. I helped a friend buy a P&S today that shoots a whopping 0.7 fps. Yeah. Don't get all caught up in resolutions and MP's and such. Find a DSLR and a good lens and you'll see your photography improve almost immediately.
@jasonbarnette such shameless innuendos lol how much are the D200 and D300? around 900 dollars i bet? lol i just worry with lower megapixels and needed to crop a picture i may loose quality. im not sure if i'd consider mine a point and shoot because it does have VERY advanced options and settings for a P&S but it doesn't have a removeable lens.
@lilkitty90 Well...OK first of all I love innuendos and I'm kinda liking the fact you *get* them. Haha. Problem?
There are P&S cameras, then something called bridge cameras. Bridge cameras are those that look like DSLR but don't have removable lenses. Is that probably what you have?
You can pick up a D200 for about $500 in fact, but just the body. You'd still need to buy a lens and a battery grip if you wanted to shoot high speed. The D300 is still a bit more expensive at about $800 just for the body. Right now I have a D200 and two D300's :P
@jasonbarnette haha no problem with me i frequently make them myself. its funny cuz im cracking up and everyone else is like eh? lol
yup it's a Cannon Powershot SX30 IS it's great. it's the step before the Rebel that just came out. in fact my camera just came out about 2 years ago maybe?
hahaha care to donate? lol jk i am working on my money situation. however my first and foremost passion before photography is horses, and then photography which is why my horses tend to be the subjects i use most. lol
@lilkitty90 Wait a minute...are you cracking up right now, or in general?
I LOVE horseback riding. It's been a few years, and the last time was on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. I thought about owning a horse at one time but, yeah, it's almost more expensive than owning photography gear.
Donate? I donate lots of things...but not my cameras ;)
@jasonbarnette lol in general. though i dd crack up for a second! lol
i love horseback riding too. never rode on the appalachian trail. actually.. never been there period.. sounds like fun, lol nah owning a horse really isn't as expensive as people make it sound. though it is more then photography. but lens and cameras cost way more then horses and tack. lol
@lilkitty90 Only for a second? Dammit. I'm gonna have to work harder at getting you to open up a bit more so I can...oh shit I can't say it hahaha
Well the thing that was expensive for me was finding a place to keep a horse. Maybe the stables at the coast are just more expensive? On my bucket list: horseback riding on a tropical beach. Come on...let's go haha
@jasonbarnette O.O lol ok that one made me laugh quite loudly. i love the looks of people in the room who are like wtf? lol
oh man that is totally my bucket list. however its finding a beach that allows horse back riding. i'd love to ride at the ocean, take my horse out in the waves and swim a bit. would be so much fun.
@lilkitty90 YES! Success! Now I can put my clothes back on, my work is done.
Ocracoke Island allows horseback riding. As does the Caribbean. Ah yeah baby...the Caribbean. No pirates there now. Just people who look really good in bikinis and shorts. I would love to ride a horse up and down a beach, tie them up and go swimming for an hour, then ride around to watch the sunset. Oh man...now I'm completely distracted haha
And I don't believe you! Either you had a severe twitch in your eye or you're winking something about my donations! Wait...was that Morse code? Shit I wasn't pahying attention...can you do that again?
aww but i wanna bring MY horse.lol guess i'll have to settle for someone elses but it just wont feel the same. i think you just wanna watch gorgeous tan ladies laying on the beach at sunset lol
@lilkitty90 LMAO. OK...now you made me lol but at I'm alone. haha
Who *doesn't* want to see gorgeous tan women laying on the beach at sunset? Or men in your case. Although if I was out there with the right person I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be any attention to them ;) Ohshit...it was a wink. I had a twitch I swear! A hippopotamus landed in my eye! Seriously!
hmm very true. lol though i'm a pretty shy person, so i tend to keep my eyes in front of me and not let them wonder often. lol a twitch? a hippo landing in your eye made you wink? ow wow i'd hate to see what an elephant would make you do. lol
@jasonbarnette lol why not? as long as it's all in fun :)
hmm idk people have tried everything. i seem to be pretty resistant lol throw away, i've gotten pretty good at dodging things having owned horses. they are always trying to pee, crap, sneeze, caugh, kick, fall, sit, and roll on you. lol
@lilkitty90 Cause...I said so! Blah. Yeah, my comeback could not have been more lame.
You can't dodge me, though. And besides...I don't pee, crap, sneeze, cough, kick, fall, or sit on cute girls! I have been known to roll on them though and they generally like that haha. Why are you so shy? You seem really open with me.
@jasonbarnette yeah that was pretty lame. i'm pretty sure my cat could have done better spitting a hairball my direction lol but its ok
hahaha i bet they do. lol then again most women do. some are even sadistic enough to like some of the latter.. O.O i've known a few.
i am shy. just because i always have been. sure i SEEM open. but thats because i'm behind a big fancy screen :) however i am working on my openness and communicating more in person then behind a computer.
@jasonbarnette haha i personally picked that moment to go do my running lol it wasn't to much
no your not allowed to say pussy out loud lol definitely dot dot dot dash dot dash. lol have a biting fetish do you? lol
lol a hippo once is an accident, but i don't think a hippo can fall in your eye twice... i am beginning to think it's a twitch not a hippo! lol want me to hold your hand and drag you to the eye doctor? ;)
yeah you kind of missed your innuendo there. lol im not sure you can delete messages can you? i've never really paid much attention to things like that. lol
@jasonbarnette ahaha that would be interesting if anyone else commented. lol
like i said i'm open because i got a nice computer screen to hide my blushing behind. lol
bareback.. yes. naked no. lol i don't go outside naked.. in fact i don't leave my room or the bathroom naked. however i have ridden bareback in a swimsuit, dress and shorts. other then that no. lol and to stay on the liberating traack. lol jumping a horse over a fence while bareback is very liberating. i just don't find hairs getting in my nooks and cranies very appealing imo
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2. that's an old french term, sorry....you ain't gettin rich.
Ohnowait...I *am* haha.
No camera settngs to mention....taken on my P&S!
ISO 6400, focal length 22mm, shutter speed 1/125, aperture f/5
But I do have one of the "purple hour", too. Ever saw that @jasonbarnette ;)?
F22 15second exposure iso 100
F22 13 sec exposure iso 200
ok heres a blue one... :) Sorry I saw the purple one up there and just had to share my purple ones lol
Is this blue hour?
f20 30 second exposure iso 800
I dont know if this is one either...
F3.5 exposure .002 Iso 100
@smevvy So go shoot more :P During the summers there the sky stays lit for SOOOO long after sunset. I think I shot a photo at 11PM one night with blue skies!
Exposure: 0.0667 sec (1/15)
Aperture: f/8.0
ISO Speed: 400
Focal Length: 35 mm
and purple :)
Blue
and some purple-ish...but might have been from all the lights ;-)
One of my first
it wasn't long exposure, i was just lucky enough to get the brilliant blue hobart sky, just good timing :) but here are my settings:
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/3.5
ISO Speed: 3200
oh the terms you coin.....
here is a blue one
sadly thats all i have.. guess i'm going out tonight.
However...I'm confused about the statement "I'm likeable so its good." What does *that* have to do with crooked horizons???
You know I'm here to teach. That's one of hte reasons I joined this site: help others get naked...erm I mean help other shoot better photos! Haha. Sorry couldn't resist. I'm always here to help others.
Benefits of a meet-up: you could shoot photos with my DSLR all day. And one of my four lenses. Oh and my speedlights :P I used my financial aid refund my senior year to buy my first DSLR.
THAT is the biggest benefit. lol DSLRgasm lol my instructor let me use his and 1 speedlight and left the room. and i was like uhh... where are the settings at on this thing. lol i would buy it with my financial aid but i don't think 500 bucks is enough for a DSLR unfortuantly.
DSLRgasm? You are just full of new terms haha. And actually you can get a Nikon D80 or D70 for about $500. They aren't the best in the world, but hey that's what I started with ;)
i'm all about Megapixels lol how many Megapixels i can get in the cheapest DSLR
Would you be shocked to learn I spent the first year of my career shooting for magazines like Southern Living, Budget Travel, and Travel + Leisure with a Nikon D200 at 10MP? People always think higher resolution is more important but it's not.
Sorry for talking so much! P&S cameras have higher resolutions because the sensors focus on resolution over power. You can't strap a 300mm lens onto a P&S and then fire off 8 frames per second. I helped a friend buy a P&S today that shoots a whopping 0.7 fps. Yeah. Don't get all caught up in resolutions and MP's and such. Find a DSLR and a good lens and you'll see your photography improve almost immediately.
There are P&S cameras, then something called bridge cameras. Bridge cameras are those that look like DSLR but don't have removable lenses. Is that probably what you have?
You can pick up a D200 for about $500 in fact, but just the body. You'd still need to buy a lens and a battery grip if you wanted to shoot high speed. The D300 is still a bit more expensive at about $800 just for the body. Right now I have a D200 and two D300's :P
yup it's a Cannon Powershot SX30 IS it's great. it's the step before the Rebel that just came out. in fact my camera just came out about 2 years ago maybe?
hahaha care to donate? lol jk i am working on my money situation. however my first and foremost passion before photography is horses, and then photography which is why my horses tend to be the subjects i use most. lol
I LOVE horseback riding. It's been a few years, and the last time was on the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. I thought about owning a horse at one time but, yeah, it's almost more expensive than owning photography gear.
Donate? I donate lots of things...but not my cameras ;)
i love horseback riding too. never rode on the appalachian trail. actually.. never been there period.. sounds like fun, lol nah owning a horse really isn't as expensive as people make it sound. though it is more then photography. but lens and cameras cost way more then horses and tack. lol
aww thats to bad. ;) lol
Well the thing that was expensive for me was finding a place to keep a horse. Maybe the stables at the coast are just more expensive? On my bucket list: horseback riding on a tropical beach. Come on...let's go haha
What does that wink mean? That one? Right there!
oh man that is totally my bucket list. however its finding a beach that allows horse back riding. i'd love to ride at the ocean, take my horse out in the waves and swim a bit. would be so much fun.
it means nothing... i swear. lol
Ocracoke Island allows horseback riding. As does the Caribbean. Ah yeah baby...the Caribbean. No pirates there now. Just people who look really good in bikinis and shorts. I would love to ride a horse up and down a beach, tie them up and go swimming for an hour, then ride around to watch the sunset. Oh man...now I'm completely distracted haha
And I don't believe you! Either you had a severe twitch in your eye or you're winking something about my donations! Wait...was that Morse code? Shit I wasn't pahying attention...can you do that again?
aww but i wanna bring MY horse.lol guess i'll have to settle for someone elses but it just wont feel the same. i think you just wanna watch gorgeous tan ladies laying on the beach at sunset lol
nope only once. you'll soon learn
Who *doesn't* want to see gorgeous tan women laying on the beach at sunset? Or men in your case. Although if I was out there with the right person I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be any attention to them ;) Ohshit...it was a wink. I had a twitch I swear! A hippopotamus landed in my eye! Seriously!
hmm very true. lol though i'm a pretty shy person, so i tend to keep my eyes in front of me and not let them wonder often. lol a twitch? a hippo landing in your eye made you wink? ow wow i'd hate to see what an elephant would make you do. lol
hmm idk people have tried everything. i seem to be pretty resistant lol throw away, i've gotten pretty good at dodging things having owned horses. they are always trying to pee, crap, sneeze, caugh, kick, fall, sit, and roll on you. lol
oh goodness haha maybe i don't wanna know >_
You can't dodge me, though. And besides...I don't pee, crap, sneeze, cough, kick, fall, or sit on cute girls! I have been known to roll on them though and they generally like that haha. Why are you so shy? You seem really open with me.
hahaha i bet they do. lol then again most women do. some are even sadistic enough to like some of the latter.. O.O i've known a few.
i am shy. just because i always have been. sure i SEEM open. but thats because i'm behind a big fancy screen :) however i am working on my openness and communicating more in person then behind a computer.
no your not allowed to say pussy out loud lol definitely dot dot dot dash dot dash. lol have a biting fetish do you? lol
lol a hippo once is an accident, but i don't think a hippo can fall in your eye twice... i am beginning to think it's a twitch not a hippo! lol want me to hold your hand and drag you to the eye doctor? ;)
you have to say goose. lmao no one will EVER know!
see but the thing is lol your the one stil twitching here. lol :P
exactly. i figured if men get to be fowl, and have foul play, why can't women? right? lol
ahaha Maverick? so we are giving them names? because if thats the case then mine is Daisy. so people can say they were pushing up Daisies. lol
lol never heard of it, :P noooo lol my flower is sacred. lol :P
yes laughing out loud is something i often do. Daisy is good to look at. lol
oh yes. loling for real is fun until you bust something in your gut. lol
naw remember i don't do nude pictures. i get all liberated from horse back riding not from being nakie.
yeah you kind of missed your innuendo there. lol im not sure you can delete messages can you? i've never really paid much attention to things like that. lol
like i said i'm open because i got a nice computer screen to hide my blushing behind. lol
bareback.. yes. naked no. lol i don't go outside naked.. in fact i don't leave my room or the bathroom naked. however i have ridden bareback in a swimsuit, dress and shorts. other then that no. lol and to stay on the liberating traack. lol jumping a horse over a fence while bareback is very liberating. i just don't find hairs getting in my nooks and cranies very appealing imo