I've planned this photo op a few weeks ahead. Using The Photographer's Ephemeris I checked out the upcoming full moon to see where over the Niagara Falls it would be and how its rise would be timed compared to sunset. Everything seemed to line up nicely with the moonrise shortly after sunset but not too late with blue hour still providing light to the surroundings. And that was important since I wanted to sneak winter into the photograph too.
No, it was not a sure bet at all. I felt the moonrise was a bit too much to the north possibly escaping from the frame. But it was close enough to give it a shot. Also the mist at the falls is unpredictable. Just a slight change in wind direction or strength can make or break a photo shoot.
As far as equipment goes, I considered bringing my split ND filters but decided against them. I was reluctant to deal with another layer of glass in the misty location in winter. I also felt that the rising mist would get strangely darkened and make the photo look unnatural. I also ruled out multi-exposure HDR ahead of time. First, I have enough unprocessed photos awaiting attention so I did not want to pile on even more. Second, I felt that the moving mist, water, and sky during the extended exposure would introduce challenges I did not want to deal with. I decided I would shoot RAW and either process a single photo and get enough shadow detail out or try a single exposure HDR, which I had some good experience with in the past.
Upon arrival the mist was very dense and not much was visible over the falls on the United States side. Things did not look too promising. However, that is the good thing about making it somewhere. Since you're there you might as well stick around. There was good news too though! There was almost no wind and the mist was slowly rising up and drifting in the direction of the Niagara River, away from my shooting location. And as always, its density seemed to vary .
After capturing some establishing shots at sunset and rolling into that night's blue hour, there it was! The Full Wolf Moon (see my The Moon, The Full Moon, The Harvest Moon, The Blue Moon, ... The Moon for full moon names throughout the year) rose just enough to the right (south) of the casino in Niagara Falls, NY, to provide some framing separation. Yet it was enough to the left (north) of the Horseshoe Falls to avoid the heaviest mist. As the mist direction and density varied so did the visibility of the moon. However, there was plenty of opportunity to see, enjoy, and photograph the natural phenomenon along with a natural wonder in one photograph. Yes, the human element also stepped in as the illumination of the falls started with dusk too, providing more color to the scene. It's a great feeling when things click and things work out!
The first photo above is a RAW file I have processed in my usual, somewhat simplistic way. I do not do any masking and time consuming things like that. I prefer subtle shadow and highlight adjustments, a bit of curves to tweak contrast, a little saturation touch up, and some cloning to remove blobs resulting from dust on my sensor that has been driving me crazy for weeks!
The second photo below is an HDR made from a single RAW exposure. I opened up the NEF file in Nikon Capture NX2 and saved two 16-bit TIFF files. For the first one, I selected -1 exposure compensation, and for the second one, I selected +2 exposure compensation. I brought both TIFF files into Nik Software's HDR Efex Pro 2 and tweaked the settings to get a realistic non-HDR-like photo. It was a bit more challenging here since the normal landscape subtlety does not apply here. The man-made illumination is really not subtle at all and saturation rules and I wanted that to come across in the photo. As such, my hand had to be a bit heavier on the saturation settings compared to my standard.
Full Wolf Moonrise over Horseshoe Falls
Single exposure HDR processing of a RAW file of illuminated Horseshoe (Canadian) Falls, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.
Have fun experimenting with various techniques!
Equipment used:
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