Planning light for Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Solar noon
What is LightWindow
Plan your shoot around the light, before you leave the house
LightWindow tells you when the good light happens and where it comes from. Pick a city and it lays out the day in order: morning blue hour, sunrise, golden hour, solar noon, then the same windows in reverse as the sun goes down. Every time is shown in the local clock, so you know exactly when to be in position.
The cards above also carry a compass direction for sunrise, sunset and each golden and blue hour window. That tells you which way the light will fall, so you can scout an angle or a backdrop ahead of time instead of guessing once you arrive.
Tools for Hong Kong
Shooting the light in Hong Kong
Hong Kong sits just inside the tropics, so day length only swings between about eleven and thirteen and a half hours - the real seasons are in the air. Summer is humid and hazy; October through January, under the dry northeast monsoon, brings the clear, contrasty skies the skyline photos are made in.
Victoria Harbour runs roughly east-west, which means golden hour light travels along the water rather than across it, sidelighting both skylines. The city’s density makes elevation the key move - most of the signature frames are shot from peaks and rooftops at blue hour, when the towers light up under a still-colored sky.
Where photographers go
Victoria Peak (Lugard Road)
The definitive blue-hour panorama over Central and the harbour; haze is lowest in autumn and winter.
Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade
The Island skyline across the water; stay from sunset through the 8 p.m. Symphony of Lights.
West Kowloon Art Park
Looks west up the harbour, so the sun sets over the water in front of the ICC.
Braemar Hill
The classic sunset perch: the sun drops behind Central and Victoria Peak from the northeast.
