Behind the Scenes: Check Out This Golden and Blue Hour Portrait Shoot

Finding the best light to bathe our subjects can be one of the most challenging parts of planning a photoshoot. We strive for those beautiful golden hour photos and sometimes completely dismiss other parts of the day. Harsh sunlight can be difficult and cloudy can be flat, but what about blue hour?

Coming at you from one of the coolest photographers on YouTube, Eric Floberg, this video invites us to look behind the scenes at the creative thoughts behind a photoshoot. The engagement shoot starts at golden hour and flows into the blue hour, the beautiful cool lighting we are blessed with after the sun sets below the horizon. As Eric points out, this is the point that many photographers may ordinarily stop shooting, but we get to see some great results obtained by staying and shooting through this period. 

Eric takes us through his thoughts on how he allows a shoot to flow and has a few tricks up his sleeve, which he shares. He also, interestingly, is shooting film and digital simultaneously.

Behind-the-scenes videos are perfect for seeing how some great photographers get their creative juices flowing. My favorite thing about how Eric shoots is his efficiency. He doesn't use any flash, which I find can slow down the entire process and ruin the natural flow. I imagine this also leaves him with a more extensive range of photographs to choose from after the session. 

So, before you watch the video, can you guess what a counter sunset is? 

Paul Waring's picture

Paul has been a professional photographer for his entire working life, specialising in reportage-style wedding photography for the last 5 years. He lives in England with his wife and a very cheeky cat.

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1 Comment

This is a great straight-to-the-point video. Stuff like this was incredibly helpful for me when I was starting out as a portrait photographer.