Up and About to Catch The 'Golden Hour'

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Dawn and sunset are the best times for landscape photography because the light can be sublime at these times of the day.  The hours around sunrise and sunset are called 'The Golden Hour' for a very good reason.


With a promise of a glorious sunrise I got up and headed down to White Sands at 5:45am this morning. With sunrise due at 6:33am this gave me plenty of time to get into position to get the sun coming up behind the lighthouse at Barns Ness.  However even before the sun made an appearance the colours of the dawn were absolutely amazing, with blues becoming purples and then orange as the light shifted along the spectrum.

 I took these shots of the lighthouse in the pre dawn light and also the fishing boats on the horizon as they headed out into the North Sea to begin another day.



As the sun started to come up I was able to capture moment it cut the land behind the lighthouse and continued to track it as it grew in strength and quickly rose up into the sky.  A sunrise lasts a few fleeting moments, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly the sun comes up over the horizon.




By 7:15am I was back in the car heading home for a much needed cup of coffee and some breakfast but really happy that I had made the effort to see such a wonderful sunrise not 3-miles from where we live in Dunbar.  Life really is fantastic!



Images 1,2,3,5,6 taken on a Fujifilm X-Pro1 + Fujinon 55-200mm f3.5/f4.8R OIS or Fujinon 14mm f2.8R lenses
Image 4 taken on a Nikon D800 and Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 AF-D

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