Boulder's elevation and terrain make golden hour tricky and beautiful — peaks catch alpenglow after the valley goes dim. Use the times here as your baseline, then add the ridge line between you and the sun. The times below are computed live for Boulder'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 Chautauqua meadow under the Flatirons. Arrive 30 minutes before the window opens to set up, and keep shooting into blue hour — it's shorter than you think.
In Boulder, sunset ranges from 4:35 PM in December to 8:34 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Boulder's coordinates (40.015, -105.2705) and shown in America/Denver.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:21 AM | 5:00 PM | 4:19 PM – 5:00 PM | 41 min | 9h 39m |
| February | 6:53 AM | 5:37 PM | 4:59 PM – 5:37 PM | 38 min | 10h 43m |
| March | 7:12 AM | 7:08 PM | 6:32 PM – 7:08 PM | 36 min | 11h 56m |
| April | 6:23 AM | 7:39 PM | 7:03 PM – 7:39 PM | 36 min | 13h 17m |
| May | 5:45 AM | 8:09 PM | 7:31 PM – 8:09 PM | 38 min | 14h 24m |
| June | 5:31 AM | 8:31 PM | 7:51 PM – 8:31 PM | 40 min | 15h 00m |
| July | 5:45 AM | 8:28 PM | 7:49 PM – 8:28 PM | 39 min | 14h 44m |
| August | 6:12 AM | 7:57 PM | 7:20 PM – 7:57 PM | 37 min | 13h 45m |
| September | 6:42 AM | 7:09 PM | 6:33 PM – 7:09 PM | 36 min | 12h 27m |
| October | 7:11 AM | 6:21 PM | 5:44 PM – 6:21 PM | 37 min | 11h 10m |
| November | 6:46 AM | 4:44 PM | 4:04 PM – 4:44 PM | 40 min | 9h 58m |
| December | 7:15 AM | 4:36 PM | 3:53 PM – 4:36 PM | 43 min | 9h 21m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Boulder. It is longest in December at about 43 minutes and shortest in March at about 36 minutes — a difference of 7 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Boulder gets 5h 39m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:36 PM in December to 8:31 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 9:04 PM, and in December until about 5:07 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.
