The Best Time for Photography in Stockholm, Month by Month

These times are approximate. They are calculated for the 15th of each month in central Stockholm, shown in local clock time and rounded to the nearest five minutes.

Two things to keep in mind when you read the table. Sweden moves its clocks on the last Sunday of March and of October, so sunset jumps an hour later at the end of March and an hour earlier at the end of October. And the change from day to day is fast in spring and autumn: around the equinoxes, Stockholm gains or loses several minutes of daylight every day, so a date two weeks away from the 15th can differ noticeably. Your photographer works from the exact time for your date.

"Golden hour" is a loose term. Here it means the time when the sun is less than about 6° above the horizon, up to sunset. "Blue hour" means the time when the sun is roughly 4° to 8° below it. Calculated for the middle of each month, the evening windows in Stockholm look like this:

The surprise is at the two ends of the year. In mid-December the sun reaches only about 7° at noon, so soft, low light lasts for most of the short day. Around midsummer the sun sinks only about 7° below the horizon at its lowest, so the sky never gets properly dark and blue light runs from late evening to the small hours.

The morning windows mirror the evening ones. Around the equinoxes, in March and September, golden hour is at its shortest, about 55 minutes, which is one reason a session at that time of year starts promptly.

Spring is the driest season in most of Sweden, according to SMHI, the national weather service, and that shows in the light: clear, bright and fairly hard at midday. In mid-April the golden window starts around 19:10 and ends with sunset around 20:05, a comfortable time for almost anyone.

The trees are the variable. In March the parks are still bare. Kungsträdgården's cherry trees usually flower in April, with the timing moving by a couple of weeks depending on the weather, and the avenue is crowded for as long as the blossom lasts. By the middle of May the leaves are out and the evening session has moved to around 20:10 to 21:15, which is still easy to keep with older children.

May is the month we would pick if the date were entirely free: long evenings, fresh green and the peak of the visitor season still ahead.

In June the golden window opens around 20:50 and sunset comes after 22:00. That suits a couple or a proposal. It rarely suits a three-year-old. The alternatives are a morning session, when Gamla stan is still nearly empty, or a late-afternoon session in open shade.

Sunrise around 03:30 makes a true dawn shoot a serious commitment, but the hours from about 05:00 to 07:00 give you long, low light over the water with hardly anyone around, which is rare in high summer.

Midsummer Eve always falls on a Friday between 19 and 25 June. Many Stockholmers leave for the countryside, and plenty of shops and cafés keep short hours or close, so the centre can be strangely quiet. July is when many Swedes are on holiday and visitors fill the old town, while summer as a whole is normally the wettest season at most Swedish weather stations. It often arrives as showers, so read our guide to what happens if it rains on the day.

Autumn is the season when good light falls at normal hours. In mid-September the golden window opens around 18:15, and by mid-October it runs from about 16:45 to 17:40. A family can finish before dinner and a working couple can leave the office first.

Leaves usually turn from late September through October, with the deciduous parks of Djurgården and Hagaparken the obvious places to use them. The timing and the colour vary with the year, so treat a specific "peak" week as a hope, not a plan.

After the clocks go back on the last Sunday of October, sunset drops to a little after 16:00 almost overnight. If your session is planned for the last days of the month, check the date against the change first.

In December the sun rises around 08:40 and sets around 14:45, so the whole session has to fit into a few daylight hours. The upside is that the low sun gives soft, directional light through most of the day, so you do not need to wait for an evening window that will arrive at 14:00 anyway.

The most striking pictures often come just after sunset. In December the blue hour falls at roughly 15:20 to 16:00, when the street lights and shop windows of Gamla stan are on and the sky still has colour. The traditional Christmas market on Stortorget adds light and crowds in the weeks before Christmas.

Snow comes and goes in Stockholm, and it cannot be booked. If snow is the point of the shoot, keep your date flexible or look further north. Cold is the other limit: hands and faces show it quickly, so a winter session is usually kept short, with a warm place nearby.

Light returns quickly after New Year. By mid-February the sun sets around 16:40, and the window before sunset is an easy hour again.

• Couples and proposals. The last hour before sunset is the classic choice, and blue hour afterwards adds a second look without moving far. In summer that means a late evening. See couple photography in Stockholm.
• Families. Plan around your children first and the sun second. From May to August a morning session or an early evening in open shade works better than a 22:00 sunset. In winter, go for late morning. See family photography in Stockholm.
• Portraits and business photography. Open shade and even cloud give the most consistent skin tones, so a clear midday can be worse than a grey one. Morning or mid-afternoon usually fits the working day. See business portraits in Stockholm.
• Winter sessions of any kind. Plan to finish at sunset, and allow for a blue-hour extension if the cold is bearable.

A cloudy day is not a lost day. Cloud removes the golden window but gives soft light at every hour, which photographers often prefer for faces.

Crowds follow a fairly reliable rhythm, and it often matters more than the sun:

• Gamla stan is quietest before about 09:00. From late morning it fills up, and in summer cruise passengers add to the numbers.
• Monteliusvägen and Skinnarviksberget draw people at sunset on warm evenings. The benches fill well before the sun goes down, so a weekday or a session in the hour before the crowd arrives works better.
• The waterfront at Stadshuset is busy with wedding parties on Saturdays.
• Kungsträdgården is crowded during the cherry blossom, particularly at weekends.
• Midsummer weekend thins out the city centre, while December evenings bring people back to Gamla stan for the Christmas market.

As a general rule, weekday mornings beat weekend afternoons almost everywhere. Our guide to the best photo locations in Stockholm goes through the places themselves, and the Stockholm location page covers getting around.

1. Start with the fixed things: the days you are in Stockholm, your children's sleep, your flights.
2. Look up the row in the table above and work back from sunset. A one-hour session that ends at sunset starts an hour before it, so check the row for your month and allow for travel to the first spot.
3. Decide what you care about most: light, an empty location or a convenient hour. You can usually have two.
4. Put a time window in your availability request, not just a date. We check who is free and reply personally with a proposal naming the photographer, the package and the price.

If you are not sure which window to ask for, say so. The photographer can suggest an hour that fits your date, your place and the people in the picture.