As I've shared in my previous post, my Blue Moon plans did not go exactly as planned. Using The Photographers Ephemeris, I convinced myself that the night of the actual Blue Moon was not the best time to shoot the full moon. The moonrise was too early, still during daylight. With the atmosphere it is (not exactly clean) and too much light the moon is usually too faint under the conditions. Therefore, I postponed my main full moon photo shoot till the next evening and came up with simpler plans for the Blue Moon.

My simpler plans did not pan out much I must say though. First, my prognosis was right and the moon just over the horizon was barely visible (thinking of it, maybe I should share a photo of that disaster after all). And second, my vantage point did not work all that great either.

What's one to do then? Well, I took a few shots of the originally envisioned set up and then started looking around. My previous post showed what I found looking down, and today, here's what was behind me.

Generous Mother Nature struck again, and it was a 2-4-1 this night.

Whether your plans work out or not, keep your eyes open for more, look around, and you just might get a special reward for doing so!

Have fun and enjoy what life throws your way!

Desert in New York My idea for shooting the Blue Moon on the night of the actual Blue Moon turned out not to be so great. The good news was that Mother Nature decided to help out and threw a patch of beautifully cracked soil my way, along with a gorgeous sunset. So, while I may have no Blue Moon to show, I have a cracked soil abstract and  a sunset to share with you soon too.

I know I keep coming back to the topic but it seems to hold true all the time. Plan, but keep your eyes open! Many times, it is the unplanned that turns out to be the highlight as opposed all of those elaborate plans. However, the planing is great too! Who knows if the unplanned could happen without the planned.

And the moon? Well, I headed out a night later and am hoping some of those shots will actually be presentable. But for now, it is just my camera enjoying them. By the way, what's an almost full moon a day after Blue Moon called?

Have fun, and not just once in a blue moon!

Green Mountains Sunrise, Vermont I've had several posts in my blog here about how I like going back to the same places over and over to look for new opportunities. That also makes the locations stick in my brain and then when an opportunity comes up (sunrise, sunset, moon rise, moon set, fog, snow, etc.) it is easier to know where to head.

This time in Vermont was very different. The night before, I enjoyed a beautiful sunset view from a mountain side overlooking the valleys and lower ridges below. That view alone was enough to convince me that the only right thing to do was to set the alarm for 5 AM the next morning and head out to seek sunrise from down below. I wanted to get a sunrise over Mt. Mansfield but that's really not that easy to do away from home without the location know how. I read some pointers before leaving but those quickly proved to lack detail.

Anyway, When I headed out that morning I got more than I was hoping for. There was a dense fog all around filling the valleys and covering everything with a gorgeous veil. My problem was finding a location that could bring that veil to life. Not knowing the area proved to be quite a bit of a challenge and I wasted much of the densest fog and watched the sun rise over the distant peaks and burn it off. As I gradually left the bigger roads for smaller ones, I eventually ended up on some beautiful dirt roads through the countryside and at one point, I crossed a crest and this view opened up in front of me.

At that point, I had pretty much given up on a sunrise shoot and was simply soaking in the mountains and enjoying the quickly disappearing fog. So something like this was a gift, an unexpected but much appreciated gift. This was the first photo from that morning after more than an hour of driving around.

Now that I have been there and know the basic geographical features, I want to go back and improve on my first trip and add to my collection.

Have fun exploring new places as well as revisiting your old ones!