For those wondering after I mentioned it in last night's post, this was the scene that greeted the 30+ photographers and other moonwatchers as we all gathered along Front Street hoping to capture the super blue moon rising behind Marblehead Light. I have three more nice sunset shots from after the one taken of the Corinthian that I'll share tomorrow. Enjoy the very summer like weather on this Labor Day weekend!
For the first time in what feels like forever, the full moon was set to rise and not clouds or rain threatened to get in the way. I had mapped out the projected location of the moon from several spots including Fort Sewall but decided earlier in the day on a completely different spot. As the sun set, I made my way up the grass hill of Seaside Park and to the backside where it faces the harbor. I found trees in the way so I descended to an open area of granite where I could set up and wait. [...]
This one took some planning... I've captured many images of the Marblehead Carnival over the last 15 years but knew I had the chance for a unique shot this year with the anticipated full moon rising on the second night of the Junior class carnival. I spent quite a bit of time over the last two days scouting the anticipated path of the full moon and finding locations that would bring it within the frame of the ferris wheel. I arrived at Devereux an hour before sunset and did more planning, lens checks and waited. And waited. The moon was [...]
And here is the last of five images captured on Sunday, November 6th. This is the image I had in mind when I left the house (though I planned on getting the moon rising lower and to the left of Brown's Island). When the moon failed to appear, I pivoted and captured an unexpectedly amazing sunset. But when that sunset faded, I walked down Beacon and found the moon finally exiting the clouds. I captured this image of it making sure to include Brown's Island and the hints of fall color. It wasn't until my daughter came into my office [...]
So this was my first shot at the Hunter's moon on Friday night when I thought it was full. With the moon rise timed to occur before the sun set, I was able to capture a pastel sky as well as some foliage bathed in sunset light. I was pretty happy with this image not realizing that, five minutes later, I would get a stronger composition aiming towards the Corinthian Yacht Club. Also, the fact that this wasn't actually a full moon (that would come the next night over Tinker's), took away from my initial excitement. Still, any chance to [...]
Somehow I had convinced myself that the full Hunter's moon was last night and ran around to three different spots capturing the moon rising well before sunset. Then I realized this afternoon that the moon was only at 100% as of 4:55pm. With that in mind, I pulled out my app for predicting the moonrise and came up with two options - Childrens or Tinkers... I decided to check out Tinkers first which meant driving to Spray Avenue and bringing along my longest zoom lens. By taking advantage of the full 400mm length of the lens (and cropping a bit [...]
I had a plan for tonight's full Hunter's moonrise after checking the expected location using an app. I figured that if I set up at Crocker Park, I would be able to shoot the moon coming up over the Corinthian Yacht Club and might luck out with some foliage in the park as a nice foreground element. Well, I was set up and waiting for the moon at 5:59pm when it rose a good distance away from where I had expected it! I decided to get a few shots from there as the sun was still illuminating the foreground boats [...]
Last night we embarked on the Finback out of Salem harbor to celebrate our amazing staff at Asthma and Allergy Affiliates (my full time job is as a physician there). I hadn't realized until earlier in the day that the moon would rise just as we motored out of Salem harbor so I came prepared with my new favorite lens and got to work trying to capture the nearly full moon from a moving boat. This was a tricky shot with constant adjustments to settings to compensate for the boat but, as we passed Folger Point, I lucked out with [...]
On Thursday, August 11th, I headed out to Crocker Park to capture the last supermoon of the year. I had plotted out the sturgeon moon's rise just to the left of the Eastern Yacht Club from this spot and decided to shoot from the benches on the small hill at the park to gain a bit of extra elevation and help separate the boats in the harbor. This was a tough shot to get and required a wide open aperture to capture enough light for the final image. As it turned out, I am currently working on my 2023 Marblehead [...]
I knew this one was going to be tough. The biggest moon of the year (the proverbial supermoon) was due to rise 30 minutes after sunset. That's an eternity of lost light and would make for a very technically difficult shot but also made compositional options difficult. With the moon being so much brighter than anything around it, the foreground elements would end up lost short of some multi-exposure tricks. Then it dawned on me that Marblehead Light was still draped in led lights from the Independence Day holiday so I planned out my location at the edge of Fort [...]