Marvelous Moons - November 2022
Marvelous Moons is a series where I share some of my favorite moon photos from other photographers and talk a bit about them. It’s a way for us to all learn concepts and techniques from the best!
Sometimes I think of photography like a game, where you get points for certain elements. For me, a photo of the moon all by itself high in the sky is great, but if you can get it low on the horizon with something terrestrial, that means more points. This photo here, by Zalman Wainhaus, contains plenty of bonus points! The reflection alone makes it eye catching, but then the perfectly lined up heron makes it the star of the show, and also earns additional points. Zalman knew this heron was always in essentially the same place every morning, so capturing this was just a matter of waiting in the right spot and then making necessary adjustments to get it just right. Throw in some moody forest fog, along with a shoreline cradling the subject as well as being a leading line up to the moon in the sky, and this image is definitely a winner in the game of lunar photography!
After factoring in distance, angle of elevation of the subject, and the actual alignment, the timing for lighting is often the last thing you might think of when planning a moon photo. Considering sun position is often skipped altogether. Good lighting can take moon images up a notch though, regardless of if the timing was planned out or not. Lukas Wyss captured the moon rising during what I consider to be one of the perfect times, which is just after sunrise. The landscape lights up beautifully and you can get great exposure for the moon and land in one shot, which I’m surprised to see many believe is not possible. I find that this is generally within 20 minutes after sunrise when the moon is setting, or within 20 minutes before sunset as the moon is rising. Outside of those windows, either the landscape will come out too bright, or it will be difficult or impossible to capture the landscape at all without lengthening your exposure when it’s dark, and you therefore sacrifice a crisp and detailed moon. More than a half hour before sunrise or half hour after sunset, you’ll likely end up with a completely dark landscape, or silhouettes only, or, a completely blown out moon, where you just have a white disc or orb, as you commonly get in those pesky cell phone shots. Even best case scenario outside of those times is you have a photo that more than likely would have been better during the prime times. I love this shot for that perfect lighting on the mountain, and of course a beautiful moon along with the tower for better sense of scale.
Jordi Coy and are on the same page when it comes to moon photography. He sums up well my take on finding compositions in his caption of this photo, which reads, in part (translated from Spanish): “I'm always looking for natural formations that somehow coincide in a special way with the Moon”. He continues, “I've been thinking of ways to match the moonrise to the apparent size and perfect angle of the rock to create that visual effect that looked like it had come from the same mountain, lifting the ground and opening a passage, breaking the crust.” He also talks about challenges in making the idea come to life, since the place he would have to be with his camera was on private land, and also had rough terrain and trees and other mountains which could obscure the view. Luckily, he was granted access by the owner and was able to find a window through the trees to be able to capture the dreamed photo. One of the lessons here then, is sometimes it can take a lot to actualize a photo you have in mind, but with patience and persistence you can be rewarded with a dream come true!
