Photo: Palm Trees at Blue Hour

These palm trees are silhouetted against the sky at Kiwanis Island Park in Cocoa Beach, Florida, during the time known as “blue hour.”

If you aren’t familiar with the term, blue hour is that time between sunset and dark when the available light takes on a great blue color. Or I suppose this could also be the time in the early morning before sunrise as well. For whatever reason, I am usually either too busy or too asleep in the mornings to notice it, so I generally think of blue hour occurring in the evening. Photographers enjoy this time because of the unique light that can’t be found any other time during the day.

This was actually right at the end of the blue hour period, when most of the light was gone. I had thought about trying to get a longer exposure to pick up some of the detail in the palm trees to blend in with this one, but then I decided that I liked the silhouettes of the trees just fine. The light fixture on the pole is a bit of a juxtaposition, but there wasn’t a good way to frame the photo to get the clouds near the horizon and not have the light in it. So hopefully it adds some interest to the photo, too.

About the Photo

A single RAW exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about the photo software and gear I use at the camera gear page.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Olympus 14-42mm IIR