It’s in the timing
October 17th, 2006
There is a very small window of time when photos like the moon shots below can be taken. At each full moon there is a time when the moon is rising and the sun is setting and the light is right. Of course the weather has to cooperate as well. But the key is that the moon is in full sunlight. The exposure for the moon is the same as for any subject on Earth in full sun. So there has to be some sun lighting the subject on Earth or the dynamic range of the scene will be beyond the ability of the camera to capture both the light and dark ends of the exposure. You get about 15-30 minutes. Working fast is essential. After that, if you expose for the subject on Earth the moon will become just a white disk. Not nearly as interesting.
Nemesis and I waited a year for the conditions to be right for those photos. During that wait some suggested that it would be better to just photoshop a moon into a photo and not bother with the technical challenges of shooting it all together. I think you can see in the photos below that the effect of the moon light on the photos is a critical part of what makes the photos work. You can’t get that with a photoshopped moon. Well, maybe a master at photoshop could manage, but it’s one heck of a lot of work. I use digital tools to capture my photos, but they are pretty much “straight” photos…what I saw through the lens is what you see, adjusted in terms of tone, but not content. I have no problem with artists who create images in photoshop…that’s just not what I do, at least right now.
Today’s photo is a shot that also had a very short window of opportunity. The sun lit up those ferns for only a few minutes. I got the model, Charlie Rayne, into the right position and fired off a few frames. It’s been a very successful photo for me. It was published earlier this year in French PHOTO magazine. And, I like it.
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