Planning light for Los Angeles, United States
Morning blue hour
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 Los Angeles
Shooting the light in Los Angeles
The cliché about golden light in Los Angeles is simply true: dry air plus a persistent thin marine haze diffuses low sun into the warm, wraparound glow the film industry was built on. The basin faces the Pacific to the west and southwest, so beach sunsets are the daily default.
Seasons here are about clarity, not day length. May and June open with "June gloom" - overcast marine-layer mornings that clear by afternoon - while winter days after a rain are the sharpest of the year, when the San Gabriels stand behind the skyline in full detail.
Where photographers go
Griffith Observatory
Sunset over the whole basin, then one of the best blue hours anywhere as the grid of lights spreads to the ocean.
El Matador Beach
Sea stacks and arches backlit at sunset; low tide opens the compositions.
Kenneth Hahn Overlook
The downtown skyline with snow-capped mountains behind it on clear winter days.
Manhattan Beach Pier
The roundhouse at the end of the pier against the setting sun, year-round.
