Photographing blue hour – plus the winners of this year’s World Photography Day competition

Understanding the challenges

The beauty of blue hour, though, comes with complications. You’re working against the clock – this window typically lasts just 20-40 minutes, depending on your location and season. The light changes rapidly, sometimes minute by minute, so you need to work efficiently.

Low light presents the primary technical challenge. In darker conditions, slight movement may result in greater blur at slower shutter speeds. Dynamic range also poses a hurdle, with the contrast between a still-bright sky and darker foreground elements.

Gear for success

Capturing landscapes or streetscapes? Add a tripod to your kitbag, paired with a cable release or timer function to prevent shake. Lens choice depends on your subject: wide-angles (14-24mm or 24-70mm) work brilliantly for cityscapes and architecture, while fast primes (f/1.4 or f/1.8) excel for portrait work when balancing ambient light with flash.

Graduated neutral density filters help manage extreme contrast when the sky remains significantly brighter than your foreground. A polarising filter can enhance blue tones and reduce reflections. Don’t forget spare batteries – cold conditions and long exposures drain power quicker.

Evening or morning: which is better?

Evening blue hour tends to be more dramatic and practical. City lights are already illuminated, buildings glow invitingly and there’s atmospheric activity to capture. Morning blue hour offers quieter, cleaner compositions but requires arriving in darkness, when artificial lights may be switched off. For most photographers, evening provides the better opportunity, combining accessibility with visual impact, but the decision lies with you. 

Optimal camera settings

Start in Manual mode with these baseline settings: ISO 400-800, aperture f/8-f/11 for landscapes (f/2.8-f/4 for portraits), and shutter speed between 1-10 seconds. Be prepared to adjust as light levels change rapidly.

Focus can be tricky in low light. Switch to manual focus or focus before darkness falls. For landscapes, focus approximately one-third into the scene for maximum depth of field. White Balance set to 3800-4200K enhances rich blue tones, while capturing in RAW format provides maximum flexibility.

Bracketing your exposures – where you take multiple photos of the same scene with different exposure settings – will offer the full range of light and shadows. The rapidly changing light means your ‘perfect’ exposure might only be perfect for 60 seconds.

Post-processing for maximum impact

RAW files are essential, offering the versatility needed to recover shadows and manage highlights effectively. Begin by adjusting exposure and White Balance – often you'll want to cool the image slightly to emphasise the blue tones.

Increase clarity and vibrance moderately to make the blues pop without pushing into unnatural territory. Lightroom’s HSL panel becomes invaluable: selectively adjust the blue and aqua channels to fine-tune the sky’s intensity. Shadow recovery brings life to darker foreground elements but be conservative to avoid introducing noise.

Consider graduated filters in Lightroom to balance exposure between sky and ground. Local adjustments allow you to selectively brighten or darken specific areas, guiding the viewer’s eye through the frame.

Overall winner: Manuela Kläui

@mklphotography.ch

“Long before dawn, we rode the first gondola up into the mountains. Taken in the first, magical moment of blue hour, this image captures the deep connection between human and dog – as if they’re saying, ‘Come on, let’s experience something together.’ Photographing in this light is always a challenge: I have to find the right balance for the camera settings so that no important detail is lost in the shadows. At the same time, the exposure time must be short enough to capture any movement of the dog sharply.”

Lei Xiong

@lei.xi0ng

“From Barcelona’s glowing coastline to Tromsø’s snow-lit fjords, Edinburgh’s historic skyline to Porto’s bridges shimmering like golden threads, chasing blue hour across Europe is a journey of fleeting light and timeless beauty. Each city reveals its soul in the magical twilight. The balance of fading daylight and rising city lights always felt like a heartbeat – calm yet alive. Whether on quiet canals in Venice, the proud spires of Stockholm, or the glowing Parliament in Budapest, blue hour reminded me that every place has its story.”  

Serena Wong

@serenasw_

“I was staying in London for a work trip and, as luck would have it, there was a spectacular full moon at the weekend. With a little bit of location research beforehand, I managed to capture this stunning view of the full moon with Tower Bridge. The bright moon shines like a light bulb. A truly unforgettable moment.”

Audrey Cavan

@audreycvn. photography

“Captured at blue hour, that fleeting moment when the light hesitates between shadow and day. The Aiguille de Varan, cloaked in silence and snow, rises like a promise of eternity. Beauty needs no words – only a patient gaze.”

Felix Mol

@felix_moll_naturfotografie

“Off the French coast in Brittany, my father and I had planned for a dramatic sunset. Instead, the clouds grew dense and the light no longer peered through. We continued navigating the rough hiking trail and arrived exhausted to instead capture blue hour. By using ND filters, the sky was transformed to a mystical purple. I set my long exposure timer for 20 minutes to create a smooth, silky effect on the water’s movements at peak blue hour. After packing up all our equipment and braving the trek home, we spent the rest of the evening engrossed in photo editing!”

Jonas Lindell

@jonas.lindell

“In the last weekend of August, fireworks and torch lights can be seen around the lakes near my cottage in the Finnish countryside. I pitched my tripod by this beach and waited for the Milky Way – the reflection of the stars came out great. To elevate the image, I’ve used ten pictures stacked, edited and then combined, with a longer exposure and lower ISO for the foreground.

“I travelled north to Sweden’s Lapland area just as the autumnal colours started to explode. We ended the day with a walk by the water, hoping for the Milky Way. I headed to this lonely tree and started experimenting with light painting using my flashlight – intending to light the scene and amplify the autumn colours in the leaves during the late blue hour. The lesson I learned that day was there is always something beautiful to capture even when you don’t get the conditions you wanted.”

Gaetano Improda

@gaetano_improda_photography

“After an unremarkable sunset, the subtle shades of blue started to emerge and revealed the grandeur of human art embodied in the imposing columns of Rome’s St Peter’s Basilica. The statues guide the gaze upward, leading to the pinnacle, a threshold beyond which lies the abstract – the divine. In this vision, architecture and nature merge in a silent dialogue. This photograph captures not only beauty but also the timeless aspiration of humanity toward the infinite. I wanted to immortalise the fleeting instant that lasts only a few minutes each day, where the natural meets the artificial, almost like a slow yet brief dance.”  

Richard Delahoyde

@rdelaphoto

“I was staying in the Hotel Sevilla Center in Seville, one of the few high-rise hotels in the city, and we were lucky enough to have a west-facing balcony. To get this photo just right, I had to take numerous tries, but it paid off as the light hit the church and the cathedral perfectly. The orange lights acts as a great contrast to the blue hue of the evening reflected in the white buildings. Although it’s not always easy to capture, blue hour is my favourite time of day.”  

Montana Delourme

@montadel

“One early April morning before the first rays of sun, I went out in the Norwegian cold to find some quiet by the riverbank. I watched the birds on the other side of the riverbank –they were too far away to capture clearly and too skittish for me to get closer. After an hour of trying (and regretting not taking my gloves) I was about to give up and take my camera home, when this lone swan drifted by, like a shining light on the dark river just as the morning sun turned the world around me a deep blue. Seeing it made everything feel just a little bit brighter.”

Thanos Paraskevopoulos

@thanos_paraskevopoulos_

“During my first trip to Amsterdam, I always carried a small tripod and my camera in my backpack to take advantage of any free time I got. After doing some research on some iconic places to visit, I arrived in the city centre and it didn’t disappoint. I saw strange houses with amazing architectural patterns, as if floating on the canal. Thanks to the favourable weather conditions, I was able to capture the reflections on the water, creating this symmetrical frame.”  

Than Zaw Oo

@henry11111667

“This is blue hour – a peaceful interlude as the daylight fades before the night and when the soft glow of the streetlights casts an ethereal blanket over the horizon. When the moon hangs among scattered stars in the indigo sky. A time for quiet reflection and a moment to breathe in the tranquil beauty of the world. From this vantage point, surrounded by the silhouettes of trees, the world feels vast and silent, a place of profound peace.”