(An early morning image of Royal Cinque Ports, courtesy of Jason Livy Photography)
It doesn’t matter where you are, really, for it happens all over the place. You could live in the busy centre of the metropolis or on the rugged coast of the western isles, and this miracle will still be within reach somewhere, most mornings. It will bleach the links and the heath alike, and it will feel as if it changes the way I am wired.
Weather permitting, our very own star will appear over the horizon, and the landscapes upon which we roam will suddenly bask in a honeyed tint, regardless of whether we are there to see it. For this is the Golden Hour, and all photographers know that is where the magic potion lives.
Photoshop can work wonders of course, but there’s no real shortcut to mastery for those in charge of a camera, as, perhaps even more than with the written word, the layperson may have no idea about what informs the craft, but they know what they like. And they are likely to tell you about it.
So Lesson One for any budding photographer must surely be to understand that part of the process is beyond their control (this should ring a bell for us golfers), and they should set the sort of alarm that makes the rest of the world shudder, and go in search of Golden Hour.
Because while you are safely tucked up under the sheets, the early morning light will flood the planet with a glowing filter, bringing to life a patchwork quilt of contour and shadow, and in that bright new start lives a limitless supply of warmth and hope for the day ahead. The birds will rise from their slumber, called not by some arbitrary “work”, but by the glory of the dawn itself, and their song will permeate the stillness like some celestial symphony.
Dappled light will thrust through the trees and illuminate the dew on the grass, and if you stay still long enough, you might see deer roaming, or rabbits darting left and right. Once in a blue moon, you might catch in the corner of your eye the silent, menacing glide of a barn owl, off to find its bed for the day, or hear the shrill yelp of the little owl, watching you with suspicion from some perch or other.
Sometimes you feel like an impostor in this realm, so you stay still and quiet and just soak up the tranquility, and feel a connection to this world beneath your feet, and to our fellow species, that is all too rare these days. Other times you too will move through the routing, following the path the golf ball dictates, watching your breath disappear in the crisp air in front of you while the trail of footprints stretches back to confuse those who will later follow.
In this light the shadowed bunkers look like cavernous pits, the fairways like heavenly carpets. The topography is even more beautiful than usual when seen through the lens of Golden Hour, regardless of the progress of that small, white ball.
It feels such a privilege to be out here as the world wakes up, and though any professional photographer would probably be quick to point out to the amateur the ludicrous hour one needs to start moving in order to catch this transcendent light, I suspect some of them feel as I do about the early morning starts - that they are, on days like today, worth every second of lost sleep a thousand times over.
The vibrating alarm on my wrist is no longer the harsh intruder it once was, but instead the daily offering of a great blessing, a gentle temptation to win the day before it even starts. For on such mornings, when the heat of our sun slowly warms my hands as I skip round a few holes, there’s surely no better place to be.
The remainder of the day will come around when it must, but for these sacred minutes I am back in the deep mystery of play, tapped into each moment as it unfolds, and when the time comes to rejoin the human race I will move through the rest of the day still quietly drunk with the thrill of an early morning secret adventure.
We call it Golden Hour. Just don’t tell everyone.
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I can totally relate to this beautiful writing reflecting the dawn of a new day, on the golf course, but actually anywhere. For me, it was my early morning drive to work at Heathrow Airport, watching the sky light up, the clouds forming in the sky, and the spotlights in the sky of planes waiting for the opening time at one of the world’s busiest airports.
My mother, a teacher, was known routinely to arrange her KO matches at Southwold to tee off at 5.30am. I think less to profit from the Golden Hour, but more that she could be back in time to take her first PE class at 9.15am!