Well, tonight’s photo represents something of a failure. The assignment was, as the title suggests, “Full Moon.” Indeed, October 12, 2011 is supposed to be a full moon — not only that, but the smallest full moon of the year! Tonight (or yesterday, depending on who you ask), the moon is as far from the earth as it will be for the next lunar year. In fact, in May of 2012, the moon will appear fully 12% bigger than it looks right now. Isn’t that something! There are some real photographic possibilities there!
Unless, of course, you’re experiencing complete and total cloud cover. Tonight, I downloaded Stellarium on my home computer to calculate exactly where the moon would be when I got home from work, and spent nearly two hours vainly trying to find it and hoped for the cloud cover to break, even momentarily.
Alas, that didn’t happen. It didn’t even come close. I did see this monstrosity at the right, but that’s about it. (Click it for bigger.) I noticed it initially because of the shadow it was casting on the other side of the street — it looked exactly like a Ferris Wheel. I was so intrigued that I had to take a photo of this thing, even a mediocre one.
At the same time, I was kicking myself for not even bringing my tripod — I could have at least shot some neat photos of the East River at night, a stop and a half underexposed. But not without my tripod.1
As I was walking home, feeling defeated, I thought to myself, “A full moon. Jeez. At this point, I would even take a photo of a teenager with a round and cratered face.” Somehow — and don’t ask exactly how — that reminded me of the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, and seeing this as my entirely last possibility for the evening, I came home and shot the image at the top of this post. And I’m happy to say I was still able to put my own photographic spin on the image, which some of you may see immediately.
I can still say that I am still shooting at least one photo every day!
1 I am proud to say that the tripod I have used for my entire photography career used to belong to my grandfather, Robert W Appleton, who had an amazing photographic ability to capture people naturally in their element.
Well, I must say I when I saw the title of this post in my RSS feed, I was excited because I had not been able to see the moon myself any of the three nights when it was supposed to appear full. So there was a brief flash of disappointment when I realized you were also unable to get a photo, but the film and photo-reference to it more than made up for it! How different the sort of fantasy people invented about the moon before we visited, compared to after! And the lens serves as an excellent replica of the space capsule!
Also, very cool that you have such a meaningful memento from your grandfather.