Behind the Shot: Rising Moon with Water Tower and Plane
Welcome to “Behind the Shot”, a series where I dive into the story behind a specific photo. Today, I’ll be telling you about the night I captured the Gilbert, AZ water tower and a plane crossing in front of the moon, and along the way you’ll see a couple of other photos from that same evening. Spoiler alert: The plane was not planned!
Single Exposure 🔹275mm 🔹 F/8 🔹 1/30 sec. 🔹 ISO 50
The water tower in Gilbert was built to provide water to the less than 500 residents of the small farming community in 1925. Today, there’s no way it could supply the nearly 270,000 people living there, but it has been restored and preserved and still remains an icon in the now bustling town.
It had long been on my list of subjects to photograph along with the moon, however, there are a few challenges it presents. The tower stands at about 230 feet, and since I wanted the moon to appear big compared to it, that means I’d have to be standing far from it, ideally more than a quarter mile away. Since Gilbert is no longer the dusty farming town it once was, there are plenty of buildings, trees, and power lines that obstruct the view in all directions. Finding a vantage point with a clear shot from far away in itself would be difficult enough, but I also had to find one that would potentially line up with a moon rise. The second potential obstacle would be smog. In big cities, having clear skies on the horizon is rare, and given the height of the tower and how far I wanted to be from it, the moon would be quite close to the horizon, so I knew I’d need some luck for that part.
Single Exposure 🔹600mm 🔹 F/10 🔹 1/200 sec. 🔹 ISO 100
After I found a few places that might work, I had to see if the timing and alignment would ever be right to actually make it happen. In the future, I’ll be writing more on this part of the planning, but the short of it is that there’s an app for that! I actually use three different apps, as I like to cross reference to ensure accuracy: PlanIt, PhotoPills, and TPE. It turns out it would be several months before the shot would be possible, so I had to wait a while! The main photo I had planned was actually the one above with the much bigger moon. After I snagged that one though, I figured why not move position and capture some more?
I wanted the moon to stay close to the tower though, so that meant I’d have to move closer to it, making the tower “taller” as I approached it. Initially, I was nearly a half mile away from the tower, so after getting the big moon shot, I quickly packed up my gear and swiftly (and safely) drove to a new position about 500 feet from the tower. If my moving positions and the different moon sizes is at all confusing to you, check out my post explaining big moon photos. As I was shooting away at the new position, I noticed a plane that was likely going to transit the moon just a few seconds before it happened, and realized a quicker shutter speed would be better to capture it. Unfortunately, with so little time, I could only make some of the adjustments ideal for the shot, so that’s why the plane is a little blurry. I ended up with a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second, F/8, ISO 50, and a focal length of 275. After that thrilling moment with the plane, I continued shooting with longer and longer shutter speeds as it got darker, which is why in the photo below you no longer see the details in the moon. Moon chases like this are always super fun for me, even if I don’t end up with any good shots, so it was quite the bonus on this night to come away with multiple photos I was happy with. I hope this inspires others to get out there and chase the moon too, if you have any questions on any of these photos please let me know in the comments.
Single Exposure 🔹225mm 🔹 F/9 🔹 1.6 sec. 🔹 ISO 125
