Photos at Four AM, or the Insanity of a Full Moon on Fresh Snow

There’s something primal about the moon. Some say that the full moon drives people to madness. Well, that’s my excuse for my behavior last night.

Twice now, once last month and again yesterday, I’ve tried to capture the majesty of the full moon with a cell phone camera. Although pretty, both results were disappointing.

So last night, when I woke up at four am and saw bright moonlight streaming through the window, I couldn’t resist pulling out the real cameras and trying to get a good shot.

Now, I’m no photographer. I like dabbling in photography, but I have a lot to learn. My husband has put more effort into his photography education. Therefore, we have picture taking supplies that I don’t know how to use, like a full tripod, a fancy mirrorless micro four thirds camera, and a remote trigger. The combination of that stuff allows some fantastic night photography.

That’s about all I knew when I woke up at four am hell bent on taking some pictures…

What made last night especially hard to resist was that we had fresh snow. There’s magic in moon shadows on fresh snow. Magic that called me away from my warm bed on a cold winter night. I had to capture the full moon on fresh snow.

Here’s the results of my mid-night insanity. Note the progression of the moon towards the horizon. It took me a while to figure things out in the dark.

A good photographer would have been able to capture the man in the moon. I need to learn more before I can do that. The closest I got is the reflection of the moon in the window glass in the last two pictures.

Click on an image to see it enlarged or view a slideshow.

Enjoy the next two nights of full moon.

Comments

Manny Esguerra says

January 16, 2014 at 6:36 pm

These are gorgeous, A!

Are these exposures long enough for the Moon to move significantly? If not, and your camera can do HDR, I wonder if making HDR images might help you get the whole dynamic range of the scene.

- Astrid Bryce says
  
  January 17, 2014 at 9:43 am
  
  Hello Manny!
  
  Thanks for checking out my pictures, and thanks for the comment.
  
  I’m not sure if the camera can do HDR. My cell phone can, so I bet this fancy camera can.
  
  I do know how to manually combine multiple exposures. When I was processing the photos the next morning, I realized that I needed a super short exposure to capture the man in the moon. I had tried some shorter exposures, but I hadn’t gone short enough.
  
  Thanks for the HDR tip. I’ll have to look into it. Basically, it would help if I learned how to actually use that camera.