Golden Hour is a great start, but learning to use light well is far ahead of day time. Here are three things about light that I have learned in a hard way – and I hope you will help you make strong landscape photos.
When I started getting more severe about landscape photography, I heard that Golden Hour was the key to magnificent images. In the first or after the day – those times were really worth shooting. And this is true: the light is soft, warm, and is often more convenient to work. So I started going out during those times. But it took me some time to feel that the golden hour alone is not enough. Just because the light is good, it does not mean that there will be a photo. There are three things here that I want someone to tell me earlier.
This is not about the beautiful light – it is about what its effects are
It is easy to distract from beautiful light. I used to walk in one place during the golden hour and believed that the job was half – the color was rich, the sky was shining, at first glance everything looked beautiful. But when I later examined the results, he did not always translate the way I expected.
Eventually, I realized: good light is not on its own color or heat. This is about how the light shapes the landscape. If you pay attention, you will start notice how soft, angle light depth adds – different layers of the area, exposing the texture in a region or hill, or wrapping around a tree in such a way that it gives it a shade, which gives it volume and depth. Once I started thinking in the context of the form, not only shine, my images became stronger.
This is why Golden Hour is very good for black and white photography. Remove the color, and you are left with tone and structure, shapes and forms. If you have used light well, the image still works – perhaps it is also better that it will be in color.
Just don’t look at the sun – what is it lighting
For some time, a picture of sunrise or sunset is mostly meant to indicate my camera in incredible colors in the sky, in the sky. I prepared a quick creation around him and fade away. And honestly, it used to work sometimes. When the sky was dramatic, it looked enough. But I was treating the sun – or color around it – as the subject, instead of thinking what the light was doing for the rest of the landscape.
Some of the best golden hour lights away from the sun. Think of a soft backlight, hit the top of the grass, reflect the brightness from the clouds across a rocky slope, or in the opposite direction. The Sun is a source, but the real interest is often how lighting interacts with the land – not in the sun itself.
These days, I make a point of looking around. around. If the sky is throwing light behind me, I want to know how it can work or interact with the ground. I check where the shadow is, where the light is descending, and how it helps or hurts the composition. It is not about chasing color – it is about understanding the direction and effect of light. Choosing a topic and for creating a composition around these effects are very strong images than relying on the sun or epic sunrise colors to carry a photo.
You don’t need to expand everywhere
Modern cameras are incredibly good in capturing the dynamic range. You can fix the shade, pull back the highlights, and end with a completely balanced exposure. But just because you don’t mean you have to do it.
Some of my early edits looked strangely flat – not necessarily the light was bad, but because I tried to show everything. I tried to copy how well our eyes can handle that kind of dynamic range and how our brains explain a scene with the dramatic contradictions of light and darkness. However, preference to light or dark parts of a composition can lead to stronger or more artistic images.
I started letting some shadows get very dark. Or I allowed the sky to be bright, even if it means clipping some highlights. I began to use the opposite with the purpose, as a way to communicate my artistic intentions. Instead of some to fix in the post, it became a main aspect of many of my photos.
A camera does not see the way we see. But if you understand that – and work against it instead work with it – then you can create images that feel more hypnotized, more deliberately, and more.
Bonus Tip: Light can work at any time of the day
It is easy to chase golden hours and ignore everything else, but some of my favorite photos have come from shooting throughout the day – once I stopped fighting it. Instead of forcing a soft, equally burnt form, I started asking what that harsh light can do for me. Strong shadows on the same element, high opposite, or directional light can become all devices, if you bend in them. There is no need to see every picture that it was made at sunrise or sunset! So I came into the full cycle and stopped taking a special photo on those times. 
final thoughts
The light is clearly the key to strong photography, and landscape photos are no different. Learning to use it starts effectively from learning how to see it. Learning how to view the light begins by identifying that it is more than only showing at the right time. It is about asking what the light is doing. Is this very direct, active light? Is it soft and more subdued? How is it interacting with the land? How is it causing depth or opposite? Consider how all these answers support the story you are trying to tell. Golden Hour is a great place to start. But it’s just that it is: a place to start.
Are you learned about light that changes your way to shoot? How has your understanding of light and its effects developed?
