The Magic of the Blue Hour

 We'll talk a bit about the magic of the blue hour in real estate photography, its significance, how to identify the right magic moment, and how you can achieve it yourself, using just a device such as the camera on your cellphone that you use daily. We won't focus on sophisticated or expensive cameras.

I've given the blue hour a very personal definition, and I always say, the blue hour is the time of day when neither the sun shines nor the house lights seem to be on. The blue hour has two moments in the day, one in the morning as the sun rises, and the other in the afternoon as the sun sets. Here we'll talk about the blue hour in the afternoon, the moment when the sun starts to set. As its name suggests, it's the magical moment when, as the evening falls and the sun begins to set, a camera, whether sophisticated or simply the one on your cellphone, captures moments with curious and very attractive blue tones, beautiful photographs that are sure to amaze you, especially if your purpose is to photograph that house you have for sale, that country house, a building, or in general, any property, turning that photograph into a truly beautiful piece worthy of being displayed on your real estate website or in your printed catalog.
 

The blue hour generally starts around 6:15 pm and ends at 6:45 pm Colombian time, for example, a period when the sunlight no longer fully illuminates, but still retains a faint reflection, providing a clarity in the sky, and similarly the lights of a house, a building, or a city, for example, do not fully illuminate but are already visible, highlighted, and clearly visible when turned on at the time of taking the photo.

If you are in the real estate sector and want to take beautiful photographs of your properties during blue hour, you should keep the following in mind:

The blue hour really doesn't mean it's an exact period of 60 minutes, nor is it at a specific hour and the same for everyone. The blue hour varies substantially in its schedule, first, for countries with climatic seasons, since for summer, for example, the sun sets quite late and rises very early, unlike winter, in which the sun sets very early and rises very late in the morning, and second, depending on the weather conditions of that day and especially at the time of taking the photo, that is, a spectacular image in the blue hour of a house, for example, is achieved very accurately on a clear day, a day that has been quite sunny and with few clouds, factors that initially offer a high probability of achieving an exceptional photo.

It's important to highlight that the blue hour is often not even detected by the human eye, that is, you may stay in one spot watching the sun set until total darkness and conclude that there was no blue hour, that it's a lie, and that you really didn't see anything amazing, except perhaps for a beautiful sunset. The magic of photography in the blue hour goes hand in hand with a basic photographic camera, sophisticated, or simply the camera on your cellphone.

Contar con una cámara fotográfica o con la cámara de un celular: En este artículo no hemos entrado en detalles técnicos de programación de cámaras sofisticadas, nos hemos enfocado básicamente en una cámara sencilla, o simplemente la cámara de tu celular, para que cualquiera pueda disfrutar de tomar este tipo de fotografías.

Regarding equipment:

Have a remote camera shutter:

The remote shutter can be wired or wireless. This device is essential and guarantees that we can shoot the camera without having to touch it, since any movement, no matter how slight, can ruin the photo by taking it shaky. In the case of your cell phone camera, you can program it to trigger automatically after about 5 seconds, for example.

Do not use the camera Flash:

In both cameras and cell phone cameras, the flash must remain off when taking the photo because the photographic record in blue colors is achieved by the camera during the blue hour. There are those who use the flash when they are photographing a model in close-up, for example, but since in our case the objective is real estate photography, the flash should not be used at the time of the photo.

Regarding the ideal moment:

Have a tripod for a camera or cell phone:

This element is essential because it will guarantee total stillness when activating or shooting the camera.

Have a tripod for a camera or cell phone:

This element is essential because it will guarantee total stillness when activating or shooting the camera.

Contar con un buen día

Es fundamental que el día haya estado despejado pues va a garantizar un reflejo muy limpio del sol sobre el cielo y los colores azules van a verse bastante definidos.

Encender todas las luces del inmueble

Es muy importante llegar al lugar con buen tiempo y preparar el inmueble, esto es, encender todas las luces interiores y exteriores de la propiedad o de la casa que se vaya a fotografiar, es decir, las luces de habitaciones, áreas sociales, corredores, jardines, etc.

Contar con un buen día

Es fundamental que el día haya estado despejado pues va a garantizar un reflejo muy limpio del sol sobre el cielo y los colores azules van a verse bastante definidos.

Encender todas las luces del inmueble

Es muy importante llegar al lugar con buen tiempo y preparar el inmueble, esto es, encender todas las luces interiores y exteriores de la propiedad o de la casa que se vaya a fotografiar, es decir, las luces de habitaciones, áreas sociales, corredores, jardines, etc.

Llegar con tiempo suficiente

Es muy importante llegar al lugar de la fotografía con muy buen tiempo, ideal sería de 45 minutos a 1 hora, todo con el fin de poder buscar y analizar ángulos atractivos para la foto, esto significa ubicar el trípode en diferentes lugares para simular las tomas que se quieren.

It is important to do some tests before the blue hour, that is, take some photos before, which will allow me to find ideal frames of the house and thus review all the other elements that will be in the photo, such as trees, surroundings, mountains, other houses, etc.

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During the blue hour the sky plays a very important role, therefore it is essential to find some angles that allow me to record a large part of the sky. Seeing if there are mountains in the background of the photo is also very important, since generally their silhouettes give a very nice contrast with the blue sky in the photo, considering that they tend to look darker.

During the blue hour the sky plays a very important role, therefore it is essential to find some angles that allow me to record a large part of the sky. Seeing if there are mountains in the background of the photo is also very important, since generally their silhouettes give a very nice contrast with the blue sky in the photo, considering that they tend to look darker.

During the blue hour the sky plays a very important role, therefore it is essential to find some angles that allow me to record a large part of the sky. Seeing if there are mountains in the background of the photo is also very important, since generally their silhouettes give a very nice contrast with the blue sky in the photo, considering that they tend to look darker.

It is essential to be clear that taking the photo of the property towards the west or towards the cardinal point where the sun sets will be very different than taking the photo of the property towards the east, or the cardinal point where the sun rises, because Towards the east the sky will be much darker and I may lose that spectacular frame that the property offers me.

For this reason, I repeat, it is very important to arrive at the place in good weather to be able to identify all the attractive angles of that property and find the ideal frames before it gets dark.

As we said before, arriving at the photography location in good weather is essential, this in order to tour the property or the house inside, for example, to also detect good angles and frames where the photo captures part of the interior and some of the exterior.

In this type of photography you can clearly see the interior light of the property, but at the same time the camera records the exterior part of it, but with the magical tones of the blue hour.

As we said before, arriving at the photography location in good weather is essential, this in order to tour the property or the house inside, for example, to also detect good angles and frames where the photo captures part of the interior and some of the exterior.

In this type of photography you can clearly see the interior light of the property, but at the same time the camera records the exterior part of it, but with the magical tones of the blue hour.

As we said before, arriving at the photography location in good weather is essential, this in order to tour the property or the house inside, for example, to also detect good angles and frames where the photo captures part of the interior and some of the exterior.

In this type of photography you can clearly see the interior light of the property, but at the same time the camera records the exterior part of it, but with the magical tones of the blue hour.

I think that with this content you are ready to take your own real estate photographs and achieve the magic of the blue hour, simply using your cell phone camera.

Choose your first property, make sure you have the equipment described above, and also that all the lights will be on inside and outside the property, take those magical photos and publish them on your website, they attract a lot of attention.

Rafa Restrepo Real Estate