This is probably the most beautiful video you’ll see today, this week, and perhaps even this year. Titled “Full Moon Silhouettes,” it’s a real-time video captured by photographer Mark Gee at Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. Gee writes,
People had gathered up there this night to get the best view possible of the moon rising. I captured the video from 2.1km away on the other side of the city. It’s something that I’ve been wanting to photograph for a long time now, and a lot of planning and failed attempts had taken place. Finally, during moon rise on the 28th January 2013, everything fell into place and I got my footage.
The video is as it came off the memory card and there has been no manipulation whatsoever. Technically it was quite a challenge to get the final result. I shot it on a Canon ID MkIV in video mode with a Canon EF 500mm f/4L and a Canon 2x extender II, giving me the equivalent focal length of 1300mm.
If you liked this one, also be sure to check out this video we featured earlier this month of a man slacklining in front of the moon.
Thanks for sending in the tip, Sam!
Getting the perfect shot, from the perfect angle, with the perfect perspective, is an obsession of great photographers and videographers. This is because, although there may not be any one perfect angle from which to capture a moment, a few of them are leaps and bounds more impressive than the others.
In this video from NatGeo’s “The Man Who Can Fly” — a short piece on daredevil adventurer Dean Potter — filmmaker Bryan Smith and shooter Michael Schaefer found one of those angles, and it only took them a mile away from their subject. Read more…
Reuters photographer Luke MacGregor doesn’t know much about astronomy, but he had the idea recently of photographing the full moon rising up into the Olympic Rings found on London’s Tower Bridge. Armed with a phone app that informed him of moonrise times, he spent two evenings trying and failing to create the photo. Finally, on the third evening, he succeeded:
I readied myself at the predicted angle to the rings. The moon would be rising at 8:50pm and would hit the rings by about 9pm. As the moon had been rising later each evening it had become darker than the previous evenings. I wished I had my tripod. Nonetheless, using the Canon 5D MkIII meant I could push the ISO a little further than I would normally have chosen for a late evening shot. Exactly on time the moon began to show itself over the horizon, a lovely peachy color. I had to keep an eye on a changing exposure, balancing the brightness of the moon with a rapidly darkening sky. As it rose I had to keep moving along, mercilessly pushing tourists out of the way who had stopped to look, in order to keep the moon in line with the rings. Finally, after three days, I had the picture I had been trying to achieve.
Read more…
Argentinian photographer Alejandro Chaskielberg started as a photojournalist before turning to documentary photography and developing his trademark style of shooting under moonlight and using strobes and long exposures to illuminate his subjects. His portrait subjects are asked to remain motionless for long periods of time as he photographs them using a large format film camera. He recently applied his style to a series on residents of Northern Kenya — a location that’s typically photographed under the harsh midday sun.
Read more…
During a 2001 launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis, NASA photographer Pat McCracken captured this amazing photograph of the shuttle’s smoke plume casting a shadow across the full moon rising in the horizon.
[...] the Sun, Earth, Moon, and rocket were all properly aligned for this photogenic coincidence. First, for the space shuttle’s plume to cast a long shadow, the time of day must be either near sunrise or sunset. Only then will the shadow be its longest and extend all the way to the horizon. Finally, during a Full Moon, the Sun and Moon are on opposite sides of the sky. Just after sunset, for example, the Sun is slightly below the horizon, and, in the other direction, the Moon is slightly above the horizon. Therefore, as Atlantis blasted off, just after sunset, its shadow projected away from the Sun toward the opposite horizon, where the Full Moon just happened to be. [#]
Talk about a one-in-a-million shot…
(via PhotoWeeklyOnline)
If you’ve been thinking of trying your hand at lunar photography, tomorrow night might present the perfect opportunity to do so. It’s when the Moon will be the closest it has been to the Earth in 18 years, making it 14% larger and 30% brighter than when the full Moon is furthest away. Miss this opportunity, and you won’t see a Moon like this until about 2029 — who knows what we’ll be shooting with by then!
Super Full Moon (via Harry Lim Photography’s Blog)
Image credit: Moon and trees by jpstanley
