Ice and MoonlightJanuary 2005

 



The game land behind Coopers Pond is a marvelous place for moonlight photography: the land is also used as an experimental water project, with water spraying from various pipelines throughout the year and giving rise to all types of ice formation. Combine that with snow and a full moon, and one has some very interesting scenes.

The following is a wide photo (1000 pixels), but smaller sizes didn't capture the moodiness as well (such as the line of ice light on the rightmost tree trunk).


 
Moody moonlight
 
  The full moon is also bright enough for experiments in backlit photography. The contrast can be extreme since moon shadows are always dark if not black. (And it's always a pleasure to have some stars in a photo.)

 
Moon backlighting ice
 
  Photo note: I used a Pentax *istD, with the SMC-A f2 35mm lens, and the temperature was about 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 Celsius): The little *ist does okay in the cold; I wish I could say the same for my fingers. Also, I was using relatively short exposures (15 to 25 seconds) by this time, at the end of the walk, so I lightened the scene in Photoshop. With a longer exposure (a minute or two), a scene under the full moon appears like a strange form of daylight.



Bryce Canyon by moonlight

Look Out!   |   Contact