Category: Moonrise

Full Moon Rise – First of 2 this Month

August 2, 2012
Great Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLake MichiganLighthouse BeachLighthouse Beach PierMoonriseRichard Mack
1 Comment

This August we have two full moons we can all shoot. I went on down to my favorite location which is about a mile from my house and shot the full moon coming up. I have been trying to get the perfect shot of the moon rise over this old pier. So far to no avail the way I first envisioned it. And because the rock wall blocks how far away you can get it is not possible to back off and use a long lens the way I want to. So you adjust.

There was another person who has read this blog who showed up and recognized me. I gave her some tips on equipment she might want to purchase. For me a key ingredient is the polarizing filter. And for shots like these more important are the graduated neutral density filters. A most worthy thing to have in your bag. It will bring down the exposure in the sky to make images without a blown out sky. I use the .9 neutral density filter which takes off 3 stops of light. And the later you shoot – and I go way past most folks – you really need it in order to try and keep the moon without having it just burn out. You also have to keep your exposures to less than 1 second or the moon will move during the exposure and therefore not be sharp. Some of the last images from last night were 8 seconds, and I knew the moon would just be a small white circle – well a bit oblong though but also blown out. Acceptable since I wanted the glow on the water.

Now in all honesty I was not really into making images on this night. And there was a cloud layer, as usual, out over the lake, so once I got there I had to wait. A photographer doesn’t like just sitting so I made a few images before the moon popped out of the clouds. I tried to do something a bit different than anything done before. Sometimes you have to reach back and look at things in a very different perspective especially when the location is very familiar.

Not sure how successful these were, I will need to ruminate on them a while longer before deciding whether they might be worthy for inclusion in the book I am currently working on Twenty / Ninety-Five: The Great Lakes Landscapes. It covers all five of the Great Lakes. You can see more about it at Quiet Light Publishing. www.quietlightpublishing.com/GLP.php

You can also see more of the images from this shoot here: Moon Rise

The second full moon is on August 29 – known as the Blue Moon – a semi rare occurrence. And where the phrase “Once in a blue moon” came from. Wonder if I shoot that one as well. And where?

Cheers,

Richard

 

Two Friends, their cameras and the Full Moon…

December 11, 2011
Great Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLighthouse BeachLighthouse Beach PierMoonriseRichard Mack Photographyseeing

Last night we had another full moonrise, and in addition there was a total lunar eclipse, which unfortunately wasn’t visible here in Chicago. But I still made my way down to my favorite beach here in Evanston and the old pier at the north end of Lighthouse Beach. This time I was prodded by a friend of mine to make the journey. Jill Buckner is a photographer who has been working in Atlanta for 20 years and is now splitting her time between Atlanta and Chicago. She wanted to visit the beach with me for a moonrise. I thought why not. It’s cold which will help condition me for the upcoming winter shoots around the Great Lakes and I will have the pleasure of shooting with another photographer who I have never shot with.

It is always interesting to me when you shoot with another photographer, because they may bring fresh eyes to something you look at the same way each time. This can be especially true in the case of a location you have shot repeatedly. As luck would have it the moon came up right on time, yet we were not. So we arrived about 15-20 minutes after it had cleared the horizon. We thought we had more time from looking at the cloud layer out over the lake, which magically disappeared at the time of the rise of the moon. Clearly we should have been on time, especially because the moon was positioned far enough north of east in the sky that it came up right down the pier’s path.

Maybe because of our late arrival we both just went to work rather than looking at the scene and talking about what we would be trying to get in our shots. So you had two photographer’s plying away quietly for the next 70+ minutes through to the darkness if night.

Interestingly we never really crossed paths with each other. She went to one view I another. For me the immediate goal was to get the moon rising over the end of the pier with the posts pointing towards the moon. As the evening went on and darkness fell it was the moon’s glow on the water which came to life and became a stronger element than the moon itself. At this point you are shooting in the dark, with a high ASA – in my case 1600 – but then have noise to deal with in the dark areas of the image. My guess is that if I moved up from the Canon 1Ds III to one of the newer Canon’s like the 5D Mark III which has a much higher ASA scale topping our near 128,000 I would solve this problem.

I look forward to seeing what Jill shot – I’m guessing they are different even though we shot the same place at the same time with similar cameras and equipment. Each of us has their own unique perspective and that is what makes art an individual creative form.


To see more from this evening’s shoot use this link: Moonrise

And to see even more full moon images just search the blog for moon

Cheers,

Richard

 

My 711th Moonrise!

September 15, 2011
eveningGreat Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLighthouse BeachLighthouse Beach PierMoonrisephotography at nightRichard Mack Photography


On Monday September 12, 2011 I watched my 711th moonrise. OK, I haven’t seen all of them but based on a moonrise every 28 days this is my 711th moonrise. I was down at Lighthouse Beach in Evanston, Illinois, my favorite beach which you know if you’ve been reading this blog. Unfortunately, on this night the clouds were coming in once again which blocked the moonrise until it was high in the sky.

 

First shot

Luckily I had come down the night before, which is always the best night to shoot the full moon because it rises about 25 minutes before sunset giving you have enough ambient light to work with to illuminate the scene. As many of you know I have been shooting this scene for a long time. I have been waiting to get the angle of an old pier to line up with the moonrise in just the right way. In the past the moon has either been too far south or too far north and not directly where I wanted it. Then you have the weather which must be just right as well, so for months, maybe even years, I have been trying to get this shot. So on Sunday night I headed down to the lake front to see if this would indeed be the night. The sky was clear so my hopes were high. As luck would have it I was set up and ready to go well before the appointed time of moonrise, and yet I couldn’t find the moon on the horizon. There was still too much moisture along the horizon so the moon wasn’t visible until it was about 10 above the horizon. So my plan to use a long lens to pull the moon in tight against the pier once again has to wait.

Yet it was still a great night to be there as the sunset was a mixture of blues, reds and purples. With the polarizing filter on the colors were enhanced enough to match what it looked like to the eye. I also used my graduated neutral density filter once the darkness fell to balance the brightness of the moon with the rest of the scene. I found this time I didn’t like the results as it took the colors away from the sky around the moon. The darker it got the more the moonshine on the water came out in the shot. But at that point you tend to lose the detail in the moon. And as the exposures get longer than about ½ second you start to see movement in the moon with longer lenses. In the age of film you couldn’t work as long into the darkness as you can these days and still have usable images. With today’s digital cameras and post processing in Lightroom or Photoshop you can adjust RAW files in to get detail our of shadow areas of underexposed files which means you can expose for the highlights and bring back the shadow areas in post. Knowing this I kept making images well into the darkness, an hour past sunset. The two last images are my favorites from the evening.

Almost the last shot...

There are many moonrises in your life and each one is unique because of where you are when you see them. Each is to be savored. Enjoy them.

Peace,

Richard

PS: To see more images from this shoot follow this link: Moonrise at Lighthouse Beach

The "Super" Full Moon

March 20, 2011
Great Lakes ProjectLake MichiganLighthouse BeachMoonriseRichard Mack Photography
2 Comments

почистване

Last night we all enjoyed the “super” full moon – ok a lot of us did- as the moon came close to the earth as it passed its perigee in its orbit making it appear about 18% larger than normal. Now here by Lake Michigan I went down to Lighthouse Beach to shoot the full moon over an old pier that is at the north end of the beach. Much to my surprise, and disappointment, I was not the only photographer there and sadly not the first even though I was a good 40 minutes before moonrise. If you have followed along on the blog and the Great Lakes Project you know this is one of my favorite places to shoot, partly because it is less than a mile from my home and partly because it is a great place to make images.

I took my time getting there and thought it was not going to be a great night because it seemed very cloudy and the chances of seeing the moonrise seemed slim to none. Some friends were also there and we talked as I made a couple of snaps of the old pier. Then as it got closed to moonrise time it just seemed really impossible. I packed up the equipment and we started to walk off the beach. I mentioned to my friends Donna & John that this went against every rule I go by – leaving before the event because you don’t think it is going to happen. As we started up the hill I stopped and said to them, hang on I’m going to wait a few more minutes. And sure enough just then I heard someone say, “Look at the glow!” I quickly made my way to a plot of sand which had an unobstructed view and started to shoot.

It did seem bigger, and more golden in color. Because it was about 40 minutes after sunset it was truly dark out by this time and trying to get a good image was almost impossible. The full moon should really be shot the day before it is officially the full moon. Then it rises about 20 minutes before sunset so you have enough daylight left to illuminate the setting without over exposing the moon. But last night was even cloudier.

As the night took over and the clouds moved back in I also thought, hey, there’s always a full moon next month. In the average lifetime we see about 1000 moons. So here’s to next month…and being the only photographer at the old pier!

Happy Spring!

Richard