The full moonrise from late December turned out to be one of my favorite outings to capture the moon to date. I’m not sure what it was about that particular moonrise but I managed to take some images that felt unique and new – a tough task to accomplish after ten years of capturing images of Marblehead.

With the moon up, I repositioned my tripod along the gangway at the Dolphin Yacht Club until I knew that the moon would pass perfectly behind Marblehead Light. With the position set, I adjusted my camera settings for this long exposure that would serve to accentuate the reflections in the water of Marblehead Harbor. With the moon behind the lighthouse, its moonglow added a brilliant backlight to the structure of the lighthouse and served to accentuate every line. The strung lights (up for the Christmas holiday) helped light up the main tower and added an interesting blue glow to the top of the lighthouse.

With the moon close to the horizon, its reflection did not appear in the water and so only the red, white and blue of the strung lights reflected in the water below.