Knox Farm under Colors of DuskAwaiting Blue Moon, July 2015 Once in a blue moon I decide to shoot the full moon. Sometimes, I reach for a long telephoto, and my 1.4x tele-extender and see if I still remember how to execute a technically perfect photograph. More often though I try to catch the rising (or setting) moon over some familiar landscape elements.

For the July 31 full moon I actually made plans ahead of time and put it all in my calendar as a reminder.

In the end, things are not going as planned so far, but no complaints, they're going great! I was not going to shoot the actual full moon but wait for the next day so that the moon would rise later and thus appear on a darker sky over a lit up cityscape. We will see what happens with that plan as I am two hours away from that spot as of 4 p.m.

[Posting this a day later, I can reveal that those plans did not materialize. I did not make it home until 8 p.m. and had enough for the day.]

I did however head out on the 31st and to a new place where I have not shot a moonrise before. I used Photographer's Ephemeris online web app to find where I might be able to align the moon over a recognizable foreground element. After a few candidate spots I decided to try Knox Farm.

Knox Farm Barns under Full MoonFull Blue Moon, July 31, 2015 Once on location, I gave up on the exact pre-selected spot since it was surrounded with more tall trees than I remembered. I tried another path and thought I had the perfect spot. Consulting the built-in Compass app on my iPhone showed I was at least 45 degrees off though. I found a spot #3 that looked promising and proceeded to wait. I still had about 15 minutes and took advantage of the remaining daylight, as the sun set behind me, to play with some compositions. I wanted to be ready with one tighter frame that would show the moon large and one wider view that would show more of the landscape below. It's certainly easier to do this when one can still see. I also wanted to have my exposure worked out to make sure I would have shutter fast enough to prevent the moon from causing distracting motion blur.

And then it started happening! I noticed a tiny arch of the top of the moon clear the tree line behind the barn. Now that I knew where exactly the moon was I had to move about twenty feet to my right for the compositions to work. Not a bad assisted guess. I quickly lowered my tripod so that the tall foreground grass could cover some distractions back by the barn, aligned the moon in the corner formed by the tall tree and the distant tree line, and captured the moment.

Now for the tighter view with a single barn and a therefore a more pronounced moon. I quickly recomposed and took another photo, already noticing that the moon was rapidly becoming relatively brighter compared to the barn and grass below as daylight was fading and the rising moon had less and less atmosphere to shine through, therefore becoming so much more dominant.

It did not take long for the light balance to be over and silhouettes would have been the only choice if I wanted to retain enough detail in the moon instead of rendering it as a bright featureless circle. I was happy though, watching alone was very satisfying plus I knew the moment was preserved. Further, I also noticed future opportunities that will bring me back.

Full Blue Moon over Knox FarmJuly 2015

Full Blue Moon over Knox Farm, East Aurora, July 2015

I am writing this post while sitting on a sun-heated stone wall by the Upper Falls of Letchworth waiting for the Nickel Plate Road No. 765 to enter the old trestle (Saturday, August 1). Other than the two additional planned crossings tomorrow (Sunday) this may be the last time for a steam train here as the railroad is working to replace it in the next couple years. I know, writing a blog post in Letchworth instead of enjoying the natural beauty all around, sounds crazy, right? Well, I really do not want to leave my post at the moment won't last long despite the 10 mph speed limit on the bridge.

Enjoy the beauty that surrounds you! (#etbtsy)

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