Shoot the moon
If you play Hearts…
Start with the idea that the moon is a very bright celestial object reflecting sunlight against a very dark background night sky. Add clouds. Suddenly the clouds are lit by the reflection too. There is a lot of calculating to be done in terms of exposure.
You need to go to manual exposure. And, I have to disable “auto” ISO. The shutter speed varies but is upwards of 1/500 sec. The moon is bright!!
Once you get the exposure right… The camera can get the foreground. It’s pretty smart. Clouds add interest in an otherwise boring black background. The window glass has glare. And, there is a secondary reflection of the moon thru the double pane. The houses across the street provide counterpoint. The lamplight is too bright for the scene.
Today it was camera testing day. I tested the Canon G7X against the Sony RX100 VI. I learned something more about the limits of the sensor in each camera. The main takeaway lesson – manual exposure. The more interesting shots were – auto (let the camera do the calculations).
And… it was a supermoon! Ummm… it looks the same to me.
New Year
You go to bed, wake up, the calendar changes, and it is a new year. It doesn’t feel much different. There is promise and hope. A new beginning. A new slate. Reset. Restart. Do over. But, I liked the last one. I like being retired and with someone I have found and love dearly. Can we just replay the last one once again? Wistful. Promise. Hope. I know it will be all there inside bringing on the new. Happy New Year.
By the way
It’s the same ole… picture. Why take it again? You have that already? Over and over… I take the same picture of the same subjects… and they are always different… or not. Sometimes there is something almost ethereal. There’s a slight difference from before that transcends…. We are on the flight path from BWI PHI and IAD – Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC. Isn’t it swell that the jet paths cross over our heads north and south? Ethereal, they diffuse in minutes. We are between here and there, the middle of nowhere.
I take pictures of Colleen. Shhh… do I love here because she looks so good or does she look so good because I love her? Don’t ask. Don’t know. And, flowers? Sometimes there’s a glow, an angle, a softness of focus – that subtle difference between ooh and aah. Is there? a difference? Some days I am good. And, on others I feel like that “blind squirrel” lucky enough to get a nut.
Dawn
I get up early. But, my share of dawn pictures is small compared to sunset pictures. It’s not easy to expose and get the brilliant hues of orange and blue in the sky at these times. Press the shutter… what do the iPhone people call it? A shutter button? But when you are there in the moment, there is nothing like it. Ha ha. Mostly, Colleen sleeps late so she gets to appreciate the dawn like you readers – after the fact. No matter, you didn’t do the work and get to appreciate – like eating dinner after it’s cooked. Good!
Different
Every day you take the same photos. Once in a while you take something different. It might be a long time between. It’s worth it. Patience! It’s something I lack. Don’t laugh. If you don’t wander the garden because the same flowers are there same as yesterday…
Jet trails
It fascinates me in Delaware. We are in the middle of intersecting jet trails that cross my sky. Everyone is on the way over Delaware to somewhere else. Out of NYC, Baltimore, Philly, DC. From overseas. The jet trails cross hither and yon. But DC? It seems they are also at an intersection as well. I don’t feel so left out watching the rest of the world pass by.
Crossroads
I used to live at the crossroads of the world. Now I am at another crossroad. It seems that air traffic out of Reagan and Dulles and BWI and Phi all cross Delaware. The clouds move fast. They change like the weather. Wait a minute or so it will look different. Every once in a while, the jet trails cross over in a great pattern. Everyone is headed somewhere. There’s an app that lets you point your phone at the trail and it will tell you the flight and destination of the plane that made it. TMI, I just like the pattern. Simple.
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