Sweet Light

There are many names for that time of day when the rising or setting sun lights up a  landscape in a special way. Most of the time you hear it called the "magic hour" or the "golden hour". There's even a technical term, alpenglow, when the sun is just below the horizon and the warm, pink glow causes the mountains to have that rarely seen illumination.

Church Rock in Kayenta, Arizona

I heard the best name for it from the world-class landscape photographer, LeRoy Dejolie, when I took a workshop with him a couple of years ago. LeRoy had his own name for it, and he claimed it only lasted 45 seconds.

Not an hour, or a few minutes, just 45 seconds.

The first time I heard him use his term, we were set up before sunrise at Church Rock in Kayenta, Arizona waiting for what until then I called the magic hour. LeRoy kept yelling at us to "wait until I tell you", and we all just stood behind our tripods like little soldiers all lined up ready to face down the charging enemy.

Then the order to fire came, "SWEET LIGHT'.

Forty five seconds later it was over.

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