Photographers plan around two windows: the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Here are both for Alief — computed live for its exact coordinates, accurate for any date you pick. Note the times below account for Alief's latitude — golden hour runs longer in winter and shorter at midsummer than most charts assume.
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 tip: Find an open west-facing view for sunset and an east-facing one for sunrise — buildings and hills eat the last 15 minutes of light in most city centers.
In Alief, sunset ranges from 5:22 PM in November to 8:26 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Alief's coordinates (29.7111, -95.5963) and shown in America/Chicago.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:18 AM | 5:45 PM | 5:10 PM – 5:45 PM | 35 min | 10h 27m |
| February | 7:01 AM | 6:11 PM | 5:38 PM – 6:11 PM | 33 min | 11h 10m |
| March | 7:32 AM | 7:30 PM | 6:59 PM – 7:30 PM | 31 min | 11h 59m |
| April | 6:55 AM | 7:49 PM | 7:17 PM – 7:49 PM | 32 min | 12h 54m |
| May | 6:29 AM | 8:08 PM | 7:34 PM – 8:08 PM | 34 min | 13h 39m |
| June | 6:21 AM | 8:24 PM | 7:49 PM – 8:24 PM | 35 min | 14h 03m |
| July | 6:32 AM | 8:24 PM | 7:50 PM – 8:24 PM | 34 min | 13h 52m |
| August | 6:50 AM | 8:02 PM | 7:30 PM – 8:02 PM | 32 min | 13h 13m |
| September | 7:07 AM | 7:27 PM | 6:55 PM – 7:27 PM | 32 min | 12h 20m |
| October | 7:24 AM | 6:51 PM | 6:19 PM – 6:51 PM | 32 min | 11h 28m |
| November | 6:47 AM | 5:26 PM | 4:52 PM – 5:26 PM | 34 min | 10h 40m |
| December | 7:10 AM | 5:25 PM | 4:49 PM – 5:25 PM | 36 min | 10h 15m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Alief. It is longest in December at about 36 minutes and shortest in March at about 31 minutes — a difference of 5 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Alief gets 3h 48m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 5:25 PM in December to 8:24 PM in June, so an evening shoot that works in summer will be shooting in the dark at the same clock time in winter.
Blue hour follows sunset and is worth planning for separately: in June it runs until about 8:51 PM, and in December until about 5:51 PM.
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.
