Saguaro Wanderings: Seeing 2011 (#153)

For your consideration: one of the last shots of early evening excursion from last weekend, taken at 6:35pm with the "long lens" in my glass inventory. An exquisite coda to a lovely exploration and walk.

While writing this post I am suddenly remembering my first attempt to photograph the moon at night . . . I was very early in my photographic journey, living in Clifton, Arizona, in 1975-76. I lived with my parents in a bizarre home, one fashioned by somebody having attached a structure lengthwise to the side of a single-wide trainer of some considerable vintage. There wasn't a level floor in the place. This eclectic abode also featured a porch which afforded a commanding view east, overlooking the town and hills in the distance and a terrific perch for taking in moon rises. (Ironically, Clifton featured waterway is the San Francisco River, seen from our outlook, about as far roomed from Bay Area ambiance as one could imagine.)

It was from this porch that I decided one night to take a shot at photographing La Luna. Being nighttime, I mounted my Minolta srT-102, loaded with either Plus-X or Panatomic-X film, and tried a number of long exposures. (After all, it was dark.) It didn't take long to experience disappointment: I had a semi-permanent darkroom in the laundry room, and the negatives showed the moon as a blindingly glowing blob more akin to the sun shining through a nuclear winter shroud of blackness than anything else. I was perplexed . . . nighttime, long exposure — what???

Years later I learned the "secret": the Moon, after all, is bathed with brilliant sunlight, so . . . one exposes for that (the illumination of the subject, regardless of its surroundings, just like any other situation demands). The darkness of sky is irrelevant.

Thus it may now not be so surprising to the astute reader who notes that the exposure for this submission's subject is f/11 @ 1/400 sec, with a relatively low ISO of 320, all hand-held even with a heavy telephoto lens.

It's a beautiful thing.