Rejecting Golden Light

When your options for colours are low, consider the absence of colour.

Like it or not, most of us have deep-rooted preferences (and prejudices) about the quality of light. However predictable, and even clichéd, ‘golden light’ is as a shooting choice, most people adore it. The warm glow is as much a part as the low, raking angle of sunlight, and many landscape photographers have become hardwired to wanting it. Black and white suffers very little from this fixation because the ‘golden’ aspect of this light simply doesn’t apply.

Imagine a situation where this is what you’d really like for a scene, but you’re there at midday instead. Visualize the scene in black and white, and you may find that what was harsh and cold in colour becomes stronger in monochrome. More than that, golden hour or magic hour have become locked into certain scenes as the must-have setting. And even though it’s easy to nod and agree with the sentiment of avoiding the obvious, when you’re actually on-site it’s not so easy to say, ‘well I won’t make it look beautiful in this way.’