In photography (and cinematography), the ‘blue hour’ is the luminous period just after sunset. The glowing sky and lingering hue is more visible to the camera than the human eye. Preceding warmer colours are part of the ‘golden hour’ while the cooler ‘blue hour’ comes after or overlaps. The specific time, duration and mixture depend on your geographical location, season and the weather.

Also known collectively as the ‘magic hour’, it is actually shorter and takes place from around 6:50pm to 7:40pm, here in Malaysia. The opposite applies to sunrise and dawn.

At 7:25 pm on the Kesas Highway, I set the camera on a mini-tripod and placed it low on the asphalt. A 1.5-second slow exposure captured the streaks from the tail-lights of a speeding truck basking under magical afterglow.

Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f11, 1.5 sec.