Why I Stopped Chasing Golden Hour

For a long time every walk I planned was built around the hour before sunset. It is beautiful light, and it is also the light everyone else is using. My photographs started to look like everyone else's photographs.

So this winter I made myself go out in the middle of the day. The forest at noon is not glowing. It is honest. You see the actual colour of the bark, the stones along the trail, the log someone cut years ago and never took away, the mist that sits between the trunks long after the morning.

I am not saying golden hour is a trap. I am saying it can become a habit, and habits are the opposite of looking.

Good light is any light you are actually paying attention to.

I still go out at sunset sometimes. But now it is a choice, not a rule.