The winter months of November through January here can be the best for what photographers call “the golden hours” – the first hour of light after sunrise and the last hour of light before sunset.
That’s when shafts of warm light can filter through woods like messages from heaven and glowing warm light can slowly retreat across open landscapes, taking back the day’s color as it goes.
The sun’s path (“arc”) controls our light and thermal heat. In our Northern Hemisphere during winter, the sun rises in the southeast, transiting “our” sky at low angles, and setting in the southwest. The lower angles and colder (less moist) atmosphere often provide warmly colored golden hours and the best sunsets of the year. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 9, 2021.)