Cold Moon (2024)
According to NASA, our recent full moon was the Cold Moon, Frost Moon, or the Winter Moon; the Moon before Yule or the Oak Moon; the Long Night Moon; the Child Moon; the Datta or Dattatreya Jayanti Festival Moon; the Karthika Deepam Festival Moon; Unduvap Poya; and the Chang'e Moon. Read more of what they had to say concerning the Cold Moon here.
The 2024 Cold Moon shoots started off with a Workshop where the subject was the rising Cold Moon over a shaded Garden Of The Gods with a few brave souls who didn't mind putting up with a little bit of a muddy hike and cold conditions. Look closely at the image below and see if you can find the rising moon.
Cold Moon rising behind the Garden Of The Gods
Can you find the moon? If not, here’s a closer image….
Interested in attending a Workshop? Check out what I’ve got going below.
Close-up of the Cold Moon rising behind the Garden Of The Gods
…and an even closer one. 😀
Extra Close-up of the Cold Moon rising behind the Garden Of The Gods
I shot the moon for about ten minutes after waiting on it for almost an hour. That’s about par for the course. :-)
After, we chatted a bit about photography as we slowly and sloppily walked our way back to the vehicles. I already had my mind on tomorrow's looming moonset of the same moon we just watched rise.
The morning came early. It seemed I'd only just laid down and already my alarm was screaming at me. The winds were quite blustery. I wanted to photograph the moon on the horizon with an evergreen in front of it. “Would these winds ruin my composition?” I thought to myself as the warm blankets cast their spell on me. “No! No way!” I said as I realized they were trying to lull me back to sleep with excuses and reasons not to get up. I jumped up out of bed and got ready to leave. With the winds blowing, I had no idea what I’d photograph, but I was going to figure something out!
Sunrise Skies
Looking East, I could see one heckuva sunrise blooming! The problem was, the moon was setting to the West. It’s difficult to shoot both, but I was definitely going to try.
I had a few minutes to kill as the moon was still quite high in the sky. The images that I had in mind involved a moon much lower to the horizon.
I grabbed a wide-angled lens and squared up on a young pine. The sun was still below the horizon but was definitely making its presence known as it reflected off the high clouds behind the pine.
Focusing on the pine was a bit tough as it was very dark out, the winds were blowing, and pines look blurry anyway. Lol
After snapping a few of the little pine, I backtracked a bit and lined myself up with my ole pal the windmill.
Windmill Silhouette at Sunrise
I wasn't super excited at the position the windmill was in, so I took a single image and scurried back inside my warm Delica.
I must've been pretty cold and in a hurry to get warm, because the above image is absolutely no good. It’s so bad that I didn't even edit it at all. It seems I bumped the camera or the wind caused a bit of camera movement. You may not be able to see it at the levels that you are able to zoom to. I zoomed way in and could see that the barbed wire fence had twice as many strands as typical. It was as if I strummed the wire and it was resonating. If it were just the wire, I’d have pressed on. It seems it looked like I strummed the windmill as well, tho. Ugh.
Anyhoo, the moon was beginning to get into position, and the sky was beginning to take on a bit of color, so it was finally time to go photograph what I came for.
Morning Skies
Five Billion Star Hotel (IG) guarding my camera set-up.
I set up along the side of an old county road and put the moon into my sights. The skies were really popping behind me. That’s the story of my life, always gorgeous skies opposite of where my camera is pointed.
The Cold Moon
While the moon was still a bit high, I took the time to lock in my focus and photograph the “sinking” moon. I don't often shoot the moon without foreground element. It felt so free!
Cold Moon Approaching Moonset
Before too long, I was able to squeeze both my foreground and the approaching moon into a single frame.
Cold Moon In Golden Hour
This was the lighting that I wanted, but I was hoping the moon would have been a little bit lower in the sky during this lighting.
I’d been watching the moon's path a realized it was going to be a bit to the right of where I actually wanted to photograph it setting. I’d have to reposition myself. I moved a few yards down the street before realizing why I set up where I did; I now had a small hill in my way. I’d have to find some height somewhere so I could shoot over the crest of the small hill. I looked around, there was nothing around that’d give me the boost that I needed. Or, was there…?
Behind-The-Scenes with the Nikon, Benro, and the Delica L300
I crawled up the back of the Five_billion_star_hotel (IG) and set up on top of it. That fixed my elevation issues but introduced a few others.
The tripod's job is to keep the camera still. That’s a tall task when the foundation that the tripod is sitting on is moving. The winds were a small part of the problem. I was a large part of the problem. My being up top was causing the camera to move way too much, especially using a long lens; my 600mm.
I put my camera in aperture priority, set up a shooting interval, and hopped down off the top of the van.
It was cold. The coffee helped!
I had my coffee with me, the camera was firing away, what could go wrong? 😏
What could go wrong, I’ll tell you what could go wrong. As the moon approached the horizon, I began to suspect that I wasn't exactly in the precise spot that I wanted to be. I needed to slide on down the road a tad bit more. It was difficult to tell as I was no longer up top with my camera. I decided to move anyway.
I cranked up the Delica as even the engine idling was likely too much movement with that long lens on. I put the transmission into Drive and slowly inched forward. My tripod was still set up on top of my van. The last thing that I wanted was for it to slip off. I sure hoped the winds hadn't moved the tripod any as I had it set well off to one side as it was.
Feeling confident that I’d moved up enough, I slowly stopped the vehicle and placed the gear selector into Park. Whew! The camera and tripod were still up top firing away!
Cold Moon’s Setting Approaches
By now, the lighting was quite different from when I started. I’m glad I moved the Delica as I ended up getting the position I wanted with respect to the moon and the group of trees in the foreground. Whew!
Until Next Time!
~ Faz
