On Moonlight Bay

PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL: This was an experiment I made last winter as I resumed my photography. At the moment, I can't even remember the shoot. When I viewed it unprocessed on my computer all I saw was the round globe of the moon. I'm sure I didn't expect much when I took it, and so when reviewing shots, I dismissed it without further thought.

Why experiment if you don't look at results? Today, while going through promising material from old shoots, I decided to see what was really there in my casual experiment . To my surprise, when I lifted the shadows from an image that seemed only two flecks of something and the familiar textured orb, I found a fully composed nightscape. Of course it's a bit grainy, but the exposure was spot-on; detail was already slightly blown out in much of the moon disk. I've cropped the original slightly for balance, but I'm not certain I shouldn't have used it all.

I wish I could remember shooting this and where it was taken. Clearly, I was on the way home and saw the moonrise at a miraculously handy pond. The metadata tells me it was March 24th at 7:50:18 AM EDT. The date is right; I dated the folder I saved it in. The time, clearly, is not.

It was a Thursday evening. On that date in my area the moonrise occurred 25 minutes after midnight, and the disk of the moon was 76% illuminated. This close to the horizon it would appear elongated, so 76% looks full. If anyone can identify the house, I can probably triangulate to find my precise location on the shore and maybe remember this lost moment.



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