Full one, no less, rising over Watson Lake in Prescott!
But first, we had lunch at the Raven in downtown Prescott and then walked to Gurley Street to take up some time before our big shoot of the rising moon. As it turns out, photographers usually find interesting things to photograph.
Let's start with a bit of humor and fun. Barbara was seen begging for a kiss from some shady character . . . she is a sport and everyone loves how she takes pictures of us. Turn about . . .
Rick found an interesting person as well . . .
Phyllis has her own take of interesting people . . .
Matilda, alias for a famous photographer, crafted a very different, a bit edgy and appreciated look of a corner scene with some 50's bad boys (except the date on the print is '93). The image was processed in OnOne software and I really like a new perspective. Thank you Matilda for your contribution.
Tom loves alleys and it appears that Barbara does as well. Must admit I walked right by this opportunity. What was I thinking? I love blue bikes.
Photographing door window reflections is always interesting.
Every town square has a clock. Am glad Elaine caught that item.
But, fun on Gurley street had to give way to the real object of our trip. A rising full moon. We arrived at Watson Lake about 4:30 and examined our site options. Some chose to shoot from the water's edge and a couple wanted to shoot from higher rocks. As the sun set the whole sky became more and more colorful, from bright yellow and then on to peach, pink and blues. There was a little time to shoot the lake with a golden glow.
You can see how the choice of shooting at water's edge versus higher up overlooking the lake affects how the images reflect water and color. The group above the lake saw the moon first. This was important to Rick because he wanted a really good shot of the moon. The group at water's edge thought the reflections would be better from their vantage point! I wanted reflections but thought the upper deck (LOL) was a better option! One thing for sure. . . we all had fun.
As the pink slowly gave way to deeper blue, the contrast was enough to see that there was still snow on the slopes of Mt. Humphrey in Flagstaff.
Full moons are hard to photograph as they are so bright compared to the rest of the image that they blow out easily if you try to get any background. To get both the moon's detail and its reflections requires separate images and combining them in some post processing or perhaps doing a bracketd shot (but I have never seen a good HDR without a separate moon added).
I hope that Rick thinks he got the shot he was after. I had a choice of a gray moon or a golden moon. I chose the golden moon. Both are gorgeous.
Here is my effort at two combined images. What I am most proud of is the tree in the golden reflection!! Can you see it?
Here is Tom's HDR image to capture a wider dynamic range and using a donor moon.
If you notice above in my photo, as the reflection creeps across the lake it shows up first as dancing light on the water. From there it expands. There is a glimpse of that dancing in my photo above. Barbara captures it again in her image below. When you are there and you take in all of what is going on . . . well it is magical.
We might have stayed longer but the Park Ranger politely reminded us that the park closes at sunset. He gave us plenty of time. I think we were grateful to put our gear away and head for dinner at Left-ts.
This was a fun day. Thanks everyone for your participation and the effort taken to get your shots ready.