Blue Hour Cinematic Travel Photography Guide in Los Angeles

In my opinion, blue hour is one of the most underrated times of the day for travel photography. Although golden hour is my favorite time to take photos, I often stay in the same location after the sun has set to take blue hour photos in order to capture different moods within the same photoshoot.

When it comes to travel photography, there are plenty of opportunities to explore creative and cinematic photo ideas that can be applied to landscapes and cityscapes. If you normally take photos during sunrise or sunset, you might want to make certain adjustments to your camera settings in order to make the most out of each blue hour session. Living in Los Angeles, I mostly take blue hour photos at the beach after sunset, some of which become my favorite portion of the session.

In this blog post, I will be sharing a gallery of my favorite cinematic blue hour photos taken in Los Angeles featuring both Sigma prime and Sony zoom lenses.

WHAT IS BLUE HOUR

Blue hour photography is the time right before sunrise or after the sun has set, causing the sky to take on a beautiful blue hue before night comes. Depending on the day, blue hour can be incredibly quick or last for a while.

It can be a bit more difficult to tell when blue hour starts on a more overcast or cloudy day because you might not be able to see when the sun sets over the horizon.

If you’re doing travel photography on the beach in Los Angeles immediately after the sun sets, you can quickly catch vibrant golden colors in the sky and illuminating part of the ocean, mixed with the blue hues before it fully disappears.

CAMERA GEAR FOR BLUE HOUR TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY

If you are looking to capture long exposure landscape photos during blue hour, then you’ll likely want to use a tripod to stabilize your photo. However, I usually only take photos during blue hour after I have done plenty of walking around during sunset, so I try to not take too much equipment with me when I travel.

Although I usually photograph landscapes with a wide angle, I also use the Sigma 85mm lens to capture close up images even in blue hour. As a result, having a camera that can handle a high ISO is a bonus.

I don’t think there is really a requirement/recommended camera gear list to follow when it comes to travel photography, but intentionally understanding what you want to capture and how to navigate low-light situations should help guide you into what you’ll want to carry.

ADJUSTING WHITE BALANCE

I shoot all of my images raw so that I have as much information in a photo as possible to edit with. Right after sunset, there are still some golden hues left in the sky mixed with the blue tones. For these kinds of photos, I like to experiment with keeping the warm tones by increasing the temperature, or by moving towards a cooler temperature. Below are the same photos with only the temperature adjusted.

After a certain point when the golden hues are gone, I prefer to keep it at a cooler temperature. But I encourage you to experiment and see what fits best with your style.

BLUE HOUR VS. GOLDEN HOUR PHOTOGRAPHY

One of the most obvious differences between golden hour photography and blue hour photography is the amount of natural light that will be in your photo. As an outdoor photographer, one of the reasons why I personally enjoy shooting at sunrise or sunset over blue hour is because of the contrast you’ll naturally get in a photo just by the sun. I’ll go more into detail about creating contrast with blue hour photography later on.

Another obvious difference is the color you get straight out of the camera. Sunrise and sunsets are going to have warmer golden tones compared to blue hour, which will have cooler blue tones. As a photographer, I gravitate towards warmer tones in most of my photography, which is another reason why I prefer sunrises and sunsets.

When I’m photographing landscapes or cityscapes from a wide angle, my favorite time to shoot is when there are enough clouds to diffuse the harsh light from the sun, but the golden hues still peek through the image. When it’s a clear sky I usually end up preferring blue hour because the lighting will be a lot more even and I don’t have to worry about exposure bracketing (not that it’s a tool I utilize in the first place).

Lighting for Blue Hour Photography

As I mentioned, there is less natural lighting during blue hour photography compared to most other parts of the day. As a result, you’ll want to adjust your camera settings accordingly based on the final image you want to capture.

For blue hour photography, I generally aim for a more moody image and I like keeping the final photo somewhat  underexposed. However, I still try to properly expose the image straight out of camera and make those adjustments in post so that I have more to work with. I don’t use tripods often and I try to avoid widening my aperture to 1.4 with Sigma prime lenses when it comes to travel photography. As a result, I’m either adjusting my shutter speed or bumping up the ISO to get the exposure that I’m looking for.

If you are using a tripod and wanting to capture a long exposure image during blue hour, you might not have to worry about using an ND Filter like you would during other parts of the day when the lighting is too bright to simply slow down the shutter speed and get the proper exposure.

Finding Contrast

I previously mentioned one of the potential disadvantages of shooting at blue hour (depending on your photography style) is that it might be harder to find contrasts in lighting when it comes to landscape and cityscape photography.

The two photos below were taken at the same location but at different times of the day. At sunset on a clear day, you can see spots of light in different parts of the frame and reflected on some of the buildings, while the blue hour photo has a lot more even lighting throughout. You can see the headlights of the cars during blue hour that you probably won’t find in sunset cityscape photos. But even with the headlights, the amount of contrast in the photo is still fairly minimal.

If you don’t want to have a monochromatic blue image in your travel photography, I would recommend adding a subject with a different color (like red or orange) in your frame. The two photos below were taken around the same time during blue hour. The red lifeguard car breaks up the monochromatism and creates an interesting contrast without relying on natural light.

Architecture in Blue Hour Photography

A benefit of blue hour photography is that around this time, certain architecture and city lights will turn on which is another way to create contrast without relying on natural light, and making the overall photo look a lot more interesting.

During open hours, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles has beautiful orange panels that illuminate in the midst of blue hour. Even if these panels were turned on during golden hour, the photo below wouldn’t look as striking during sunset because the dark blue tones cause the golden panels to stand out that much more.

If you ever visit Los Angeles on a day that the Griffith Observatory is open, I definitely recommend viewing the sunset over the Los Angeles skyline, but staying to see the beautiful, cinematic view of the Griffith Observatory in blue hour and night.

Blue Hour Beach Photography in Los Angeles

Although I mostly go to the beach at golden hour for sunset photography, one tactic that I like to use for blue hour photography at the beach is using any available light source to reflect onto the ocean - like the remaining light from the sun after it has already set.

From my own experience in Los Angeles, a lot of locals and tourists will go to the beach at sunset, but they might not stay for blue hour. With the moody atmosphere caused by the blue hues, it’s much easier to isolate a certain subject as shown in the photo on the right to create a more cinematic photo.

Final Words

As a travel photographer, it’s important to try and photograph at different times of the day. There are certain photos that I think are better suited for blue hour than golden hour or night.

Overtime, I have come to appreciate blue hour photography much more compared to when I first started photography. I find myself staying in a location past sunset to capture more photos to edit after a session.

Thank you for reading and until next time.