Otherwise, you can shoot wide open as normal. If you want the sun and/or clouds to be sharp, use a narrow aperture such as f/16. You don’t even need to worry about your settings too much: just place your horizon low in the frame, and the brightness of the sky will ‘fool’ the camera into underexposing any animals in the foreground. If you’re lucky, your guide might even let you get out of your vehicle and lie on the ground to get the lowest possible angle for the shot (as I did for when I took the photo at the top of this article). National parks tend to kick everyone out at sunset (which is exactly when you want to be taking pictures!), but you can stay for as long as you like at a conservancy. ![]() The trick to doing this in Africa is to go to a private conservancy such as Kicheche in Kenya or Klein’s Camp in Tanzania. That gives you the best chance of getting a clean silhouette by eliminating the background and cutting out any distractions such as trees and bushes - unless you want one or two in the shot. I spend a lot of time in Africa, and silhouette shots are easiest on a game drive when you can find a bare stretch of ground that rises gently up to the west - and obviously with a few animals on it! However, there comes a time - usually during the golden hour, funnily enough! - when you can make a virtue out of necessity: why not embrace the shadows and go all the way by shooting into the sun and turning your subject into a silhouette? If you don’t shoot with the sun directly behind you, they can be a big distraction and can spoil what would otherwise be a beautiful image. Photographers spend a lot of time worrying about shadows in their images - and for good reason. Most subjects look more appealing when lit by yellow, orange or red light, and it’s particularly effective with certain animals that already have a ‘golden’ coat, such as the big cats in Africa (see below). Take Bunsen burners, for example: when you first light them with the air intake valve shut, the flame is yellow (and relatively ‘cold’), but when you open the valve, the flame turns blue (and becomes much hotter).Īnyway, we are where we are, so let’s continue talking about ‘warm’ light. In fact, there are plenty of other things that are hotter when they are blue rather than red. Well, it’s a convention to call it ‘warm’ because we associate the colour with things that are ‘red hot’. I use inverted commas here because the colour temperature of reddish light is actually lower than the colour temperature of blue light! The most obvious advantage of the golden hour is the ‘warmth’ of the light. In this article, I’ll show you a few of the benefits of this time of day and give you some ideas for the kinds of shots to take. The word photography, after all, means ‘writing with light’, so it’s no surprise that a lot of photographers spend most of their time shooting during the ‘golden hour’ either just after sunrise or just before sunset. ![]() The quality of light is crucial in creating a great photograph.
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