Jan 22
Full moon
This is it – the day I have been waiting for!
My requirements for shooting the full moon are very specific. I’m not interested in the moon for the sake of itself, I mean when you’ve seen one moon frame-filler, you’ve seen them all. What can you say? “Nice composition”? Nope, that just doesn’t do it for me. I want the moon to be a part of a landscape, and it immediately raises the level of difficulty – expensive long glass is not the tool for that trade. My ideal moon landscape photo requires a moonset/moonrise that coincides with sunrise/sunset, so there’s nice light everywhere. Unfortunately, those opportunities are very rare. The moonset/moonrise times don’t always coincide with sunrise/sunset, and even when they do, there’s always the issue of weather. Not to mention the time of week. The full moon has a bad habit of happening while I’m sitting in the office!
So, that’s the preface to my actual story.
I left the cabin after 8am and drove to my selected moonset spot with a view towards Skarsfjället, Mittåkläppen and Stor-Axhögen. When I arrived, the moon was still high above Mittåkläppen but it was making its way down between the mountains, which forced me to create veeeery long panoramas. Yesterday morning the moon was setting right next to Stor-Axhögen, but like I mentioned earlier, the clouds spoiled the opportunity.
The biggest panorama I have is 20×175 cm (@ 300 dpi), this version is cropped short from the right so you make any sense out of it at all. The only way I’ll ever be able to admire the full size is if I have it printed in some specialist print shop!
After the moon had set, I had another skiing trip. I actually took the same trail I did yesterday, and now the mystery of the half prepared, uncharted trail was revealed to me – it’s not a snowmobile trail at all, but it’s used by the snowcat that brings up skiers from Funäsdalen! But I still don’t know why it had made a U-turn in the middle of nowhere, I guess they didn’t like the weather and turned back.
All I needed to do now was to drive to Flatruet and wait for moonrise/sunset. It was biting cold, I mean not the temperature as such (-10 degrees centigrade), but the wind that made it twice so. I didn’t care. The wind was blowing right through my supposedly windproof clothes, but I was finally witnessing – and photographing – the full moon rise on Flatruet and I was able to close that ugly chapter from three years ago when I had made a right old mess of a rare photographic opportunity. How lucky was I to have one of the finest days in January to fall on the full moon?
* * *
As it turns out, today was indeed my lucky day.
I had cruise control installed in my car last year. It’s not a very smart cruise control, so I’ve learned to disconnect it under some circumstances when I know it will just go crazy. So I was cruising along when I got close to one of those cruise-control-will-go-crazy stretches so I disconnected and the car started to slow down because I didn’t step on the gas right away. And right then – a moose crossed the road in front of me.
Where would I have been in relation to the moose had I not disconnected the cruise control and the car slowed down?
I thought I was unlucky yesterday to drop and break my GPS unit on the ski. Well, you win some and you lose some. I won.
3 comments
JassÃ¥ du har varit ute pÃ¥ vintertur! Älgar och mÃ¥nar och en massa snö, lÃ¥ter härligt! Det har jag inte sett mycket av den här “vintern” . Det kom faktiskt en hel decimeter för nÃ¥gra dagar sedan, men i natt kom regnet som tillsammans 5 plusgrader under dagen har förvandlat allt det vackra vita till slask
(.
Intressant berättelse om dina lÃ¥ngsiktiga planer pÃ¥ att fota fullmÃ¥nen frÃ¥n Flatruet. Jag har faktiskt en liknande historia om en höstmÃ¥ne över havet här ute vid kusten. Det rörde sig visserligen inte om mer än ett Ã¥rs planering, men ändÃ¥! Tror att det var -03 jag började tänka pÃ¥ det, och gjorde väl ett tafatt försök som inte blev sÃ¥ lyckat. Jag visste nämligen inte precis vart jag skulle Ã¥ka. När jag väl kom fram till FÃ¥gelsundet och sÃ¥g att där hade det blivit en bra bild – dÃ¥ var det för sent! SÃ¥ Ã¥ret därpÃ¥ var jag där och fick nÃ¥gra bilder pÃ¥ när fullmÃ¥nen stiger ur havet! En finns pÃ¥ Fotosidan.
Det där med GPS:en kan nog föra något gott med sig det med. Din själ kommer säkert närmare naturen nu när du får navigera efter månen och älgarna! ;o)
/ Leif
Det är verkligen tillfredsställande när man planerat nånting för länge och sen lyckas man genomföra planerna. Visst finns det alltid nånting man tycker att man kan förbättra, men just nu för tillfället så är jag nöjd med fullmåne-bilderna. Nästa mål? Månskära.
I could also tolerate that kind of a scenery in my trips! Very nice work indeed, would ne nice to see that panorama on the wall