sunday stills - the moon

This week's Sunday Stills challenge was the moon. I will admit that these are not my best photos....they are not even good photos...but they are moon photos. I do believe, however, that I get an "A" for effort. I've included the story of said effort...

I have never really photographed the moon...it's never been a subject that interested me. So before taking any photos I went online to do a little research for this challenge. I was planning on buying a tripod anyway, but now I had good reason as every article I read said it was a requirement. So I bought one on Monday. I printed out the moonrise and moonset times for my region for the week and eagerly waited for the clouds to disappear.


the eerieness of this photo jumped out at me

On Tuesday evening, the clouds were moving so I set up my camera with tripod and snapped a bunch of photos. They were all crap. I realized that I needed to get out of the automatic modes on my dslr. So I read some more articles on moon photography. Then I read some articles on basic photography so that I could really understand what they were saying in the moon photography articles. Then I poured over my operations manual so that I could figure out how to work my camera (outside of the automatic settings). It was cloudy for most of the week and each day the moonrise/moonset times kept getting later and later (so I was either asleep or at work).


waning moon....

On Friday morning, I awoke at 3am, flipped over and saw the moon staring at me through my bedroom window. I immediately hopped out of bed, threw on my boots and a coat over my pj's and headed into the backyard with my camera and tripod. I had taken about 25 photos, while fumbling in the dark with my camera manual, when I heard Jones open the window and ask: "Honey? Is everything okay?". "Just taking pictures of the stupid moon," I replied. "Go back to bed." He is still giving me suspicious sideways glances today. And all of those photos were also crap.


this one is my favorite (even with the blurred tree) - i
think it's the most interesting

Saturday morning, 5:15 am, I once again set up shop. The first two dark photos posted are from that session. I took a few more later Saturday morning when there was more light and the third photo is from that round. This last photo is from the only time before this challenge that I have pointed my camera at the moon...it is from my archives, taken about two weeks ago. It was my back up for this challenge in case I couldn't get a shot this week.


my only pre-challenge moon photo

I spent the week being haunted by the moon. I know now that every assumption I have ever made about the moon is true....she is a fickle, elusive creature. Sophie and I would much rather chase sunsets. (But we loved the complexity of this week's challenge and enjoyed learning so much more about our camera and the art of photography)