The Weekly Margs by Zach Margolis
G is for Golden Hour
Make it Gold!
Welcome back to the Weekly Margs, Happy New Year! I hope you are not too hungover.
It’s Gold!
I’ve made offhand references to Golden Hour in past posts, and I want to focus on it this week.
Golden Hour happens twice a day: right after sunrise, and right before sunset, and it’s not actually an hour long. Basically, it’s these magical times of day when pictures outdoors usually turn out better: the sun is not as intense, shadows are softer.
This week we’re looking at photos that have that extra golden hour glow, they’re a little warmer, cozier, friendlier.
I brought a film camera around one afternoon when hanging out with Adam and Nicole. We stopped back at Nicole’s car because her shoe broke (I forgot that part until I showed her the photo later, the first words out of her mouth were “oh that was the day my shoe broke”). The lighting in the late afternoon was just right, so I was able to catch this warm moment.
I had just arrived in Tarifa, dropped my stuff off at the AirBnb and wandered outside directly to the beach. The sun was setting, and this majestic golden retriever was out for a walk with its person. I love how its fur has these amazing highlight and the dog has a long shadow. You can see a few kite surfers in the background, it’s the same beach with the windsurfers as from my Dutch angle issue.
My English Channel window coincided with the summer solstice, and the weather and tides gave us time to visit Stonehenge for their festival while waiting for my swim. It was a surreal experience, waiting with a bunch of other people for the sun to rise on the day that Stonehenge was literally built for. Bonus: you can touch the rocks on solstice festival days! After watching the sun slowly come up behind the headstone with some locals in excellent costumes (links are to my travel blog posts), we walked through these fields during the morning golden hour. Here we see Mandy in the background also taking advantage of the amazing lighting for her own pictures.
I woke up early in the morning when staying in Long Beach and took a walk down to the pier. The sun was just coming up and it made for this friendly, copacetic start to the day. The waves were quietly crashing under the pier, it was serene to have a little alone time in the middle of that busy trip.
I passed through Alamo Square during just the right time in the afternoon on to catch this shot of the famous Painted Ladies. The combination of shooting this on film with a vintage lens gives this picture an extra heap of nostalgia, even though the photo was only taken a few weeks ago.
I hope these pictures give you readers some warm fuzzies, too. See you next week!
XOXO,
Margs