Blue Hour

The Blue Hour is the all too short period of time between when the sun disappears behind the horizon and the arrival of night. The evening sky takes on its richest color during this time, and the tones are in constant flux as they deepen toward black. While I’ve shot during this time of day many times before, those efforts have almost always come just after I’ve been photographing the sunset, or evening light. Blue Hour images have always been incidental, rather than purposeful.

On clear blue days here in Colorado, the high altitude sky acquires a rich, deep color, that very quickly sheds the remnant colors of sunset. I’ve been admiring those colors and last night finally got out for a short walk with the camera to make a few images. The main problem I found is adding interest to the foreground. The sky is by far the brightest thing out there, and the foreground elements will quickly move toward silhouette, which is fine if that is what you are aiming for. I wasn’t, so I used an off-camera flash, gelled with a full cut of CTO to highlight some foreground elements in many of the images. I set the camera to a timer and aimed the flash by hand. I also made one black and white conversion (two images down), as an experiment.

On this New Year’s Eve, I wish you all a creative, safe and adventure-filled 2012. Happy New Year!