Photographers plan around two windows: the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. Here are both for Portsmouth — computed live for its exact coordinates, accurate for any date you pick. On this side of the country, sunrise is the underrated window — the sun comes up over the Atlantic side and morning golden hour is quieter than the evening one.
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: For skylines and wide shots, the 15 minutes after sunset usually beats the sunset itself: the sky holds color while buildings and streetlights come up.
In Portsmouth, sunset ranges from 4:48 PM in December to 8:28 PM in June. Every time on this page is calculated for Portsmouth's coordinates (36.8354, -76.2983) and shown in America/New_York.
| Month | Sunrise | Sunset | Golden hour (evening) | Length | Daylight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 7:17 AM | 5:12 PM | 4:33 PM – 5:12 PM | 39 min | 9h 56m |
| February | 6:53 AM | 5:45 PM | 5:09 PM – 5:45 PM | 36 min | 10h 52m |
| March | 7:16 AM | 7:12 PM | 6:38 PM – 7:12 PM | 34 min | 11h 57m |
| April | 6:31 AM | 7:39 PM | 7:05 PM – 7:39 PM | 34 min | 13h 09m |
| May | 5:57 AM | 8:06 PM | 7:29 PM – 8:06 PM | 37 min | 14h 09m |
| June | 5:45 AM | 8:26 PM | 7:47 PM – 8:26 PM | 39 min | 14h 41m |
| July | 5:57 AM | 8:24 PM | 7:46 PM – 8:24 PM | 38 min | 14h 26m |
| August | 6:22 AM | 7:56 PM | 7:20 PM – 7:56 PM | 36 min | 13h 34m |
| September | 6:47 AM | 7:12 PM | 6:38 PM – 7:12 PM | 34 min | 12h 25m |
| October | 7:12 AM | 6:28 PM | 5:53 PM – 6:28 PM | 35 min | 11h 16m |
| November | 6:43 AM | 4:55 PM | 4:17 PM – 4:55 PM | 38 min | 10h 12m |
| December | 7:10 AM | 4:50 PM | 4:09 PM – 4:50 PM | 41 min | 9h 39m |
Golden hour is not the same length all year in Portsmouth. It is longest in December at about 41 minutes and shortest in March at about 34 minutes — a difference of 7 minutes of usable warm light per evening.
Portsmouth gets 5h 02m more daylight on the longest day than the shortest. Sunset moves from 4:50 PM in December to 8:26 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 8:56 PM, and in December until about 5:18 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.
