Moon Backwards

Tired of my Moon photographs?

That's unfortunate: I find them calming. Particularly, at a stressful time. And so, I'm going "backward" in time to images I've captured in the mountains at the very beginning of this month.

Blood Moon Eclipse

I photograph the Moon often, and have grown selective in terms of the kind of images I would like to capture. After all, my growing collection should be as multifaceted as possible instead of featuring yet another crisp Luna against the night sky, glorious though it is.

Uncommon—to the average observer—natural phenomena, like eclipses, should theoretically provide such an opportunity. Yet there are so many factors to consider—from being in the wrong time zone to thick cloud cover.  Waking up after a brief 'nap' in the middle of the night, I was a bit skeptical about viewing this month's Blood Moon eclipse, a real astrological killer, they say, thanks to the quickly changing weather conditions in the Rocky Mountains.

I was wrong—a welcome surprise—the clouds did not fully obscure this cosmic event and, in fact, enhanced some of my photographs. The only technical downside was that I could not use extended exposure times until the clouds dissipated, so as to avoid a shadowy blur. The reddish-yellow you see in the first image, for instance, was naturally obtained through a 10-second exposure.

The best part? Considering the multi-hour length of this lunar eclipse, I got as much of a chance just to observe it with the naked eye as I did to photograph it.

Sunset and the Crescent Moon

September-October in the Rocky Mountains is the time when the sunsets are spectacular on a regular basis. In fact, they make us so spoiled that we only photograph them sporadically. This would be akin to eating caviar daily (how typically Russian, n'est ce pas?).

Now if only I posted these images in a timely manner! This sunset and baby Luna are from a week and a half ago. 

Moonset and the Glaciers

This view—a quick smartphone snap, no less—made up for an unexpected day of snow with little-to-no visibility.

A daytime waning Moon, snow-peppered peaks enhanced by patchy clouds, bluer-than-blue sky reflected in the glacial lake below—it doesn't take much to impress this lady. (Okay, I admit, this involved quite a few factors coalescing into one spectacular scene.)