Albuquerque's dry desert air is a gift to photographers: almost no haze, which means crisp golden light, hard clean shadows, and an afterglow that keeps painting the sky long after the sun is down. The times below are computed live for Albuquerque's exact coordinates and update automatically for any date you pick.
The month-by-month table below is in this city's own local time. The live times above follow your device's timezone. Mountains, ridgelines and buildings can shorten the usable window — scout your horizon.
Local golden hour spot: the Sandia foothills open space. Arrive 30 minutes before the window opens to set up, and keep shooting into blue hour — it's shorter than you think.
Golden hour in Albuquerque is the hour before sunset — and sunset here runs from 4:54 PM in November to 8:24 PM in June. The table below gives the exact window for every month, in Albuquerque's own time zone.
Use the live times above for today's exact window. As a rule, evening golden hour in Albuquerque starts about 37 minutes before sunset and ends at sunset. In June that is 7:45 PM – 8:22 PM; in December it is 4:17 PM – 4:56 PM.
Sunset in Albuquerque is earliest at 4:54 PM on November 30 and latest at 8:24 PM on June 21, a swing of about 3 hours across the year.
Golden hour lasts about 37 minutes in midsummer and 39 minutes in midwinter. The longest evening golden hour falls in December at about 39 minutes; the shortest is in March at about 34 minutes.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:14 AM | 5:18 PM | 4:40 PM – 5:18 PM | 38 min | 10h 04m |
| February | 6:52 AM | 5:49 PM | 5:14 PM – 5:49 PM | 35 min | 10h 57m |
| March | 7:17 AM | 7:14 PM | 6:40 PM – 7:14 PM | 34 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:34 AM | 7:39 PM | 7:05 PM – 7:39 PM | 34 min | 13h 05m |
| May | 6:02 AM | 8:03 PM | 7:27 PM – 8:03 PM | 36 min | 14h 01m |
| June | 5:51 AM | 8:22 PM | 7:45 PM – 8:22 PM | 37 min | 14h 31m |
| July | 6:03 AM | 8:21 PM | 7:44 PM – 8:21 PM | 37 min | 14h 17m |
| August | 6:26 AM | 7:54 PM | 7:20 PM – 7:54 PM | 34 min | 13h 28m |
| September | 6:49 AM | 7:13 PM | 6:39 PM – 7:13 PM | 34 min | 12h 24m |
| October | 7:12 AM | 6:31 PM | 5:57 PM – 6:31 PM | 34 min | 11h 19m |
| November | 6:41 AM | 5:00 PM | 4:23 PM – 5:00 PM | 37 min | 10h 19m |
| December | 7:07 AM | 4:56 PM | 4:17 PM – 4:56 PM | 39 min | 9h 49m |
Golden hour is the stretch just after sunrise and just before sunset, when the low sun turns hard daylight into soft, warm, directional light — the most flattering natural light for portraits, real estate, product and landscape photography. Blue hour follows sunset (and precedes sunrise): a short window of deep, even blue that's ideal for twilight real estate shots and skylines. Both windows change with latitude and season, which is why this page computes them live instead of guessing.
Kanyon Studio is a San Diego photography and video studio — golden hour is our home field. Brand shoots, products, real estate and portraits, planned around exactly this light.
