Golden Hour and Nice Sky ~ Around and About in Japan

It was a nice sunset.

I'm leading off with that photo because it may be the more attractive, but the evening started with this one:

Golden Hour shots can be fun. For about 15 minutes, the entire area is flooded with light that makes almost anything look good. You can especially see it bouncing off the mountain in the distance. Too bad I wasn't closer to the action to get that shot, eh? But I was on foot and so getting there wasn't possible.

If you are curious, they make apps that tell you when the golden hour is for everyday. It's not actually an hour; I've found on average it can be about 10-20 minutes. It can give things a golden hue, but moreover it just gives us softer more balanced light that really makes photos pop. If you don't have an app a good rule of thumb is 20 minutes before sunset. Depending on the season and the sky conditions it could last until the sun touches the horizon, but usually the balanced light starts to collapse as we get closer to the actual sunset. You kind of get a feel for it after you do photography for awhile.

This is a small farm plot within a neighborhood. This is a mid-sized city, not a rural town, but finding areas like this in cities in Japan is not uncommon.

I walked around a bit, taking some other unremarkable photos. Then the sky opened up as the sun sank lower and I got the shot I led this post with. Here it is again.

Man, that was a nice sky! I think all photographers go through a "sunset" phase, when that is all you take photos of. Most of us eventually move on. But I do still keep my eye to the sky and if I see a nice one coming, I am ready!

And just for completion's sake, here are both shots in monochrome.

I also gave the sunset shot a little selenium toning. Sunset shots often don't make the monochrome conversion very well, so some toning helps. At least to my eye.

Which do you prefer?