Tag Archives: moon

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: The Southwest, Photographs: Utah

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers

May 12, 2012 G Dan Mitchell 2 Comments

The full moon rises through thin clouds above sandstone towers, Arches National Park.

This was a very challenging evening for photography, but I’m happy with some of the results nonetheless. We had gone into Arches National Park and made it to the first big group of arches and other formations not far from what I recall was identified as Balancing Rock. Not far from here there is an impressive amphitheater of red rock sandstone, and all through this area a truly astonishing number of arches of various forms and sizes may be found. Since it was late in the day, we figured we would stake out our ground for golden hour and dusk shots right around here.

However, there were a few challenges. First, we were arriving at this spot for the very first time, with no previous research, and it was basically time to start shooting right about now! There was little to no time for scouting, so I headed up a trail towards a likely looking area of sandstone to see what I could find as the sunset approached. I soon discovered a second issue, or perhaps realized that an issue I had known about was going to be more challenging than I had hoped – it was very windy! As the light dims this becomes more of a problem as exposures necessarily lengthen. At some point, there is virtually no tripod that is steady enough, even when weighted, to hold a camera and lens rock steady in a near gale. I have some tricks up my sleeve though, and eventually I searched out some camera positions that were sheltered by rock towers and walls. By this time, the sun had dropped below the horizon and I was now shooting it twilight, which can provide some of the most beautiful light of the day when the right sort of “glow” occurs. It turned out that the full moon was just rising, though not over the main, iconic formations. There is usually a narrow window of exposure opportunity for photographing the moon. The moon is hard to shoot effectively in full daylight, but after dark it is far too bright for the ambient light – so one ideal is to shoot it in this time right around dusk when there is just the right balance of moon light and ambient light. Lucky for me, high thin clouds moved across the sky to the east and moderated the brightness of the full moon, allowing me to continue shooting in darker conditions so that I could make this exposure of the moon rising above nearby sandstone formations.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Night, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse

December 14, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 1 Comment

The moon, in full lunar eclipse, passes behind the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is the second of two photographs of this week’s full lunar eclipse that I will share. The earlier one was a horizontal format version of roughly the same subject. Here the fully eclipsed setting moon passed behind the upper portion of the south tower of the Golden Gate Bridge, as seen from the San Francisco Bay shoreline in the Crissy Field area. There was just a bit of pre-dawn light in the sky at this point, and within a few minutes of making this photograph the combination of increasing ambient light, the generally hazy atmosphere, and the moon dropping into high, off-shore clouds brought the show to a fairly quick conclusion.

I was stunned by the number of other photographers out at this very early hour, even considering that it was within the city of San Francisco. I had originally tried Treasure Island, in the bay between San Francisco and Oakland. There were quite a few photographers lined up there at 5:00 a.m., but I did not like the potential positioning of the moon relative to likely foreground features near the horizon, so I didn’t stick around. Instead, I made a guess based on my knowledge of the area that there was a good chance that the moon might line up with the Golden Gate Bridge from vantage points in the Fort Mason, Crissy Field, and Fort Point areas. I drove over there quickly and was surprised to find the parking lots were nearly full and tripod-laden photographers walking about or already set up. I grabbed the first decent parking space, loaded up my gear, and started walking west, figuring that I could get to the likely spot on foot quite quickly.

A second surprise was that the ideal location, which wasn’t hard to find at all, was far less crowded than the areas closer to the parking lot. I was even able to find a spot or two where I could set up apart from other photographers and wait – for only a few moments by this time – for the moon to intersect with the bridge.

Another view of this subject in landscape orientation is posted here.

An interesting side note: Photographer Florian Kainz later shared his eclipse shot with me and asked if I might be the photographer standing in front of the bridge. Yes. That’s me! With Florian’s permission I have included a small version of his photo here – follow the links back to see his full-sized post at Flickr. He has given me permission to share his photograph here. Thanks, Florian!

Night Photography, Photographs: Architecture, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: San Francisco, Photographs: Structures and Objects

Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge

December 10, 2011 G Dan Mitchell 6 Comments

Moon, in full lunar eclipse, drops behind the Golden Bridge South Tower, San Francisco, California.

Very (very!) early this morning I joined the surprisingly large throng of photographers out to shoot the lunar eclipse in the San Francisco area. I was up and out the door shortly after 4:00 a.m. and heading toward San Francisco. My first thought was to see if I could get an interesting composition with the moon over the San Francisco skyline by shooting from Treasure Island, in the bay between the City and Oakland. I arrived there while it was still very dark and found that lots of other photographers (and a motorcycle club!) were already on the scene. The photographers included to semi-astronomy types with the really, really big lenses and plenty of others.

The problem was immediately apparent. Even though the moon was still fairly high in the sky, it was apparent that it was going to set far to the right of San Francisco. I might have been able to find a workable spot on the island, but I still wasn’t sure the moon would be in a good spot once it got close to setting. At this point I decided to try a “plan B,” and I felt that there was a pretty good idea that I could make something work in the Crissy Field area. So I hopped back in the car, passed through downtown San Francisco, and arrived at the Crissy Field area…

… only to find out that I was most certainly not the only photographer thinking of using this location! There were hundreds of tripod-lugging photographers lined up a long the shoreline! My main idea at this point was to find a location from which the setting moon would pass above and then behind the bridge. So I headed off quickly towards the area where I thought this juxtaposition might be available. Soon I found it, and just as the sky was beginning to lighten up a bit and shedding a bit of natural light on the bridge. It was still quite challenging to get even a workable shot. The wind was blowing stiffly, making the necessary long exposures a bit tricky. In the end I think I got one or two that are interesting.

A vertical format version of this scene is posted here – I still haven’t decided which I prefer!

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Sunset and Moonrise, Kuna Crest

August 15, 2011 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

The nearly- full moon rises above the sunset light on Kuna Crest, Yosemite National Park.

Kuna Crest runs up Lyell Canyon between the Lyell and Dana forks of the Tuolumne River with the Sierra crest at one end and Mammoth Peak at the other. (Mammoth Peak is the large peak straight in front of you as you top Tioga Pass entering Yosemite National Park.) This ridge can catch great sunset light during the summer, and as I came down from the pass, heading back toward my camp at Porcupine Flat, and saw the almost full moon appearing over the shoulder of the ridge I decided to quickly stop and make a few exposures as the last light was about to leave the forest and soon after the peaks.

If you have tried photographing a scene that includes the moon in the early evening you know that the exposure is a tricky thing. The moon is lit by daylight, so it isn’t too surprising that the “correct” exposure for the moon is close to a normal daytime exposure. But that is not the right exposure for the rest of the scene, which turns out to be quite a bit darker than daylight at this time of day. In this scene things were even more complicates as the very saturated red colors on the ridge were quite “hot,” while the foreground meadow and forest was in shade and both darker and cooler in color. Basically, the dynamic range between the moon and the foreground was too large for a single exposure… so I made several.

At the time of exposure I thought that I might need as many as three component images in the final photograph – they would be one exposed for the bright ridge and sky, one exposed for the rather dark and shadowed foreground, and possibly a third that correctly exposed the moon. To be on the safe side I bracketed four exposures. When I began to work on the image I figured out that in this case I could construct a final “believable” image from two exposures if I was careful and could make some additional adjustments during post.

This is an example of a shot in which the use of a graduated neutral density filter could have been problematic, but where exposure blending could work very well. (“Exposure blending” is one term for the process of manually combining two component exposures using masked layers in Photoshop. No, it is not the same thing as HDR photography.) One of the things that would have been quite tricking using graduated neutral density filters is that the division between the brighter upper half and the darker lower half is not linear. Instead, the roughly follows the curved boundary between the lower meadow and dark trees and the still sunlit trees and the peak and sky.

(Basic EXIF data may be available by “mousing over” large images in posts. Leave a comment if you want to know more.)

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: moon

Moonrise, Clouds, and Sandstone Towers

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Golden Gate Bridge and Lunar Eclipse

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Lunar Eclipse, Golden Gate Bridge

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Sunset and Moonrise, Kuna Crest

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.