This moon looks full but it was actually taken the day after, on Saturday night. I noticed it as I was walking down the stairs, so I opened up the windows and set up the camera on a tripod in the stairwell. The clouds kept moving across its face, and sometimes it disappeared before slowly reappearing and filling the sky with light.
This is another reason I love taking photos—I notice things that I never used to. I watched the moon disappear and reappear for over an hour, something I’d never ordinarily do. And it was so peaceful.
Because it was on high zoom, there’s some vignetting around the edges. I could have eliminated it, but I thought it gave the photo depth. I took over 300 photos, all very similar, and later when I was clicking through, I noticed they made quite a good time-lapse.
So—and I’m almost too embarrassed to show you—I made this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wflwULU1Xgo
At least it’s a starting point and things can only get better from here! By the way, it gets dark in the middle because I was experimenting with faster shutter speeds, which seems to be a theme this week:
Monique says I inspired her to challenge herself with slow shutter speeds at the beach*. Being the middle of the day, the light was too bright, so she opted for a faster shutter speed to capture these waves crashing into and over rocks at Meelup Bay in southwest WA.
The water in this image looks like glass—as if it would shatter if touched. It reminded me of glass blowing, a work-of art suspended mid-air.
Monique said it was a great exercise, and that challenging yourself often leads to surprising results.
I couldn’t agree more—in fact, I’d say it was an (unintended) theme of my life. Sometimes, the things I try don’t work out—see time-lapse above, and * below. Sometimes, the rewards seem as if they’re never going to come—like when you’ve been writing a novel for four years. And sometimes the rewards are nothing like what we’d imagined—like taking a crystal clear photo with a fast shutter speed when we were meant to be experimenting with slow speeds.
But where would we be if we didn’t challenge ourselves? Growing older and becoming bored with life, and slowly shriveling up, I suspect. I know I would be.
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*I’m glad Monique’s attempts at slow shutter speeds at the beach didn’t end up like mine. There’s a postscript to that story, too—we hadn’t listed the camera as a ‘Portable Content Item’ on our insurance policy, and because it happened outside of our property, it wasn’t insured. *sigh* Sometimes you just have to chalk these things up to ‘learning experiences’.
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About Midweek Moment:
Each week, Monique Mulligan and I share our favourite photos on our websites in a ‘Midweek Moment’. We hope you enjoy, and if you’d like to see more, click here.