April Full Moonrise, Central Arizona Highlands

Moonrise over Bradshaw Mountains, Prescott, Arizona

Moonrise this evening in Arizona was the time to make landscape shots with the Full Moon included in the frame, because the moon rose early enough to be in the scene while the landscape was still light enough for some detail.

The savvy landscape/nature photographer was not fooled by the calendar, which shows the Full Moon as being tomorrow. But that's because it will officially reach 100% illumination just after midnight Pacific Time (and Arizona Standard Time). 

So effectively this evening was the rise of the Full Moon. Here is what it looked like from the southeast edge of Prescott, Arizona, with the Bradshaw Mountains on the horizon. The "starburst" effect was from the small lens aperture, in this case f/18.

May Moonrise, Lonesome Valley

Today was full moon Friday, time for May's Full Moon. It would be "100% illuminated", as the scientists say, at about 9:30 PM. After dark, that is.

So, the time to make moonrise shots was around sunset time, before it got too dark. The moon would rise early enough to make it happen. Who cares, or could tell, that it would only be 99.999% illuminated at that time?

Lonesome Valley basalt butte and Granite Mountain (far horizon).

I was in place at the north end of Lonesome Valley, in the central highlands of Yavapai County, Arizona. The basalt buttes and the distant skyline of Granite Mountain provided a nice sunset light scenic to the southwest. 

Then, my attention was to the southeast, toward Mingus Mountain and the Black Hills, where the moon would appear. 

It was a calm, peaceful late spring evening, and nobody was around. The Earth's shadow made its familiar gradation from blue to pink. Then the moon began edging over the horizon of the mountains. Perfect. 

And it was. I made several exposures from wide angle, which showed the Earth's shadow colors better, to medium telephoto, with the mountains larger within the frame. 

Then it was time to go back to my studio and see how I did. Now you can see, too. 

Christmas Eve Moonrise, Arizona

Some rain today in the Prescott Valley of central Arizona. Wonderful mix of storm clouds and blue sky. 

As evening approached, the light became golden. Being several days before Full, the moon was above the mountains to the east. The sunset lit up the clouds around it.

This is an instance in which a larger, closer looking moon shot would have lost the contribution of the pink clouds against the dark blue sky.

Yavapai County, Arizona

Afternoon Moon Over Cliffs, Red Mountain

Half Moon over Red Mountain Amphitheater Cliffs, Coconino National Forest, Arizona
(click on image for larger version)

Hiking today at Red Mountain on the Coconino National Forest north of Flagstaff, I noticed the moon almost half full, high in the afternoon sky.

That means: Full Moon is only about a week away. 

Sure enough, checking the calendar, it will occur on Monday, June 4, at 4:11 AM. So get up early to check it out, then let me know how it was. I'll still be sleeping. 

Why? Because I almost always get my best full moon landscape shots the night before Full Moon, or even two nights before. The upcoming Full Moon is a great case in point. It officially occurs at 4:11, which means that for all practical purposes it will look full on Sunday night when it rises at 19:08 (7:08 PM), near sunset time (19:36, or 7:36 PM). 

Saturday evening, two nights before official Full Moon, could well be even better, depending on what you choose to have in the foreground, such as a tall cityscape, mountain, cliff, etc. 

Chasing April Moonrise, Northern Arizona

Chasing April Moonrise

[Photo: Moonrise over Sunset Crater Volcano.
Click on image for larger version.]

The hunt for this month's Full Moon moonrise shots began last week on Tuesday, four days before the Full Moon on Friday. 

That's right: you have to get rolling early, or it will pass you by again for another month. Time, and the Full Moon, waits for no one.

That's especially true because there's this phenomenon known as "the weather". Even here in sunny Arizona, you just can't trust it. Especially around the Full Moon. 

[Photo: Moonrise over Sunset Crater.
Click on image for larger version.]

My favorite day of the month for shooting nature landscapes featuring the moonrise is the day before the Full Moon. Yes, one day early. Why? Because the Full Moon occurs at sunset, and by the time it clears what's on the eastern horizon (forests, hills, mountains, etc.) it's often too dark to capture anything other than the moon. 

But since the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day, by shooting the day before the Full Moon, you have almost an extra hour of daylight to work with. Two days before, almost two hours more. It doesn't matter that the moon isn't quite fully illuminated. It still looks great. 

A place like Flagstaff, Arizona is great for moonrise shots. It has untold acres of public land, enjoys a lot of clear sky days, and has such a variety of environments relatively nearby, from the San Francisco Peaks to the smaller volcanic mountains, to the Painted Desert, and the red rock canyons of Sedona. Plus, it's not a congested city like Phoenix. Here you can get outta town in a few minutes.

So this time I launched myself north, onto the Coconino National Forest via US 89. Tuesday, with the lengthening spring days affording more time to get on location before moonrise. 

[Photo: Moonrise over Wukoki Pueblo Ruin.
Click on image for larger version.]

Exiting the highway onto the road into Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument, we viewed the colorful cinder cone hulk itself from the open expanses of Bonito Park. The moon had been up for two hours already. I drove on, looking for a suitable foreground before the sun went down.

North of Sunset Crater, I drove down out of the Ponderosa pine forest zone and onto the southwestern reaches of the Painted Desert. On Wupatki National Monument, we stopped to check out the Wukoki Pueblo ruin. Built atop a big chunk of red sandstone, it was three stories high and housed two or three families. With a sweeping view all around, it's a fascinating piece of prehistory.

[Photo: Moonrise at dusk, Wukoki Pueblo Ruin.
Click on image for larger version.]

This is a good example of using something tall in the foreground when the moon's this high in the sky before Full Moon.

On Wednesday I was glad that I got some shots the evening before, because the eastern horizon was clouded out. The weather thing.

So I was banking on Thursday, the day before Full Moon, to be there for me. As the afternoon wore on it wasn't looking very promising. Lots of blue sky, but lots of clouds in the east, too. 

At 5:00 PM it was decision time: go for it, or go home. The eastern skyline was mostly cloudy, but there was a significant patch of it that was clear. Maybe, just maybe...

[Photo: Sunset at Doney Mountain.
Click on image for larger version.]

I drove north to Sunset Crater again. The view from Bonito Park was nice except that the sun wasn't shining on the volcano, due to clouds around the San Francisco Peaks to the west. Another decision point: hang out here, or try for something more dramatic further north. I felt like going for it.

Another 30 miles north, I pulled off the highway onto the north end of Wupatki National Monument. This time I headed for the Lomaki pueblo ruins, which are small but quite photogenic. My planning, using the excellent The Photographer's Ephemeris, gave me a good idea of where the moon would rise, and when. But when I got to the parking lot and trailhead for the ruins, I could see that I was shut out by the clouds. The open part of the horizon was further south from this vantage.

[Photo: Sunset light on trail up Doney Mountain.
Click on image for larger version.]

So I drove south, hoping for a suitable angle and location for the moonrise. I was the only vehicle on the road through this desolate, beautiful landscape. The low angle of the sun was lighting up the blond dead winter grasses, blowing in the strong springtime wind.

The Loop Road through Wupatki and Sunset Crater briefly wanders onto the Coconino National Forest. There, the Forest Service has a little parking lot with a short, easy trail up Doney Mountain, which is actually three volcanic cinder cones. You get to hike up the smaller two. 

But more importantly on this crucial April evening, it looked like it might just be a suitable location to photograph the moonrise. So I hit the trail. 

[Photo: Moonrise from Doney Mountain.
Click on image for larger version.]

What a great spot. Wild land all around, a clear view. No powerlines, or people. The wind was so fierce that it seemed to almost knock me over, but it was a small price to pay.

I made a few shots from the summit of the smallest cinder cone. No moon in sight. Where would it appear, relative to the cloud bank on the horizon? Would the clouds block moonrise totally, until it was too dark for a good moonrise shot?

Meanwhile, I was enjoying the scenery, and eyeing the trail up the taller cinder cone. Wondering what sunset shots might await me there. I started up its trail.

[Photo: Moonrise from Doney Mountain.
Click on image for larger version.]

But I didn't get far. There was the moon, seemingly out of nowhere. Stop, set up tripod, shoot. Make a variety of compositions from close up to wide angle, with the sunset coloring the clouds.

Finally the sun was down, it was getting dark. I walked the trail back down to my truck. The ever brilliant, ever rising moon "followed me home" on the drive back to Flagstaff.

Friday, the night of the Full Moon, was clouded out. See why I start three or four days early?

You might also be interested in my Grand Canyon Photography blog.

  

Chasing Moonrise, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona

[Photo: Snow cloud and pueblo ruins, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Click on image for larger version.]

A couple of days ago, it was once again time for Full Moon moonrise landscape shots. Which are best made the day before the full moon, when it rises while there is still adequate light on the landscape.

This time, the weather was dicey, meaning many clouds on the eastern horizon. That's make or break, of course. In Flagstaff we'd been having light snow showers off and on all day. So I had dim hopes for an early evening shoot of the moonrise.

But as the afternoon wore on, more sun and blue sky appeared around the clouds. Since the full moon only comes once a month, you have to try. You might get lucky.

[Photo: pueblo ruins and sunset snow curtain, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Click on image for larger version.]

So I headed north of Flagstaff on US Highway 89. Up to the summit, then right onto the road to Sunset Crater National Monument. Before you enter the Monument, there is a very nice turnoff at Bonito Park on the National Forest land. It has an excellent view of Sunset Crater volcano.

Having recently made some sweet moonrise shots from this location, I was less than excited to make some similar ones. So with seemingly plenty of daylight left, I drove back out to 89 and headed north over the back side of the summit, down onto the high volcanic plains. Wide open spaces, down out of the Ponderosa pine forests.

I was headed for the north entrance to Wupatki National Monument, about 25 miles north of Flagstaff. As I drove, I noted with satisfaction some big cloud banks hovering near the northeast horizon. Streamers of snow hung below them, probably never reaching the ground, and thus not shutting off the eastern horizon to the moonrise. If the moonrise was obstructed by clouds, the others could well get lit up nicely by the sunset rays.

It's good for a nature photographer to have a Plan B. If not a Plan C.

Inside the northern road into Wupatki, it was two miles to the parking area where the trail led into the scattered, small, but very photogenic, pueblo ruins at Lomaki. I parked the truck, wolfed down some more of the Subway sandwich I'd stopped to get along the way, then was off on the short and easy trail.

[Photo: Moonrise, sunset colors, and pueblo ruins, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Click on image for larger version.]

The sky was changing quickly, and I walked fast. I didn't have much time. (Did I ever, in situations like this?).

Skipping the first ruins for the vantage point at the second ruins, I made a few quick exposures. Then I hoofed it over to the larger ruins. Really crunch time. The setting sun was only on the uppermost wall of the ruin. The snowy cloud bank was huge and wide, way more than I could capture in a single exposure.

So I shot a wide angle series of overlapping photos, to be merged later in Photoshop.

The moon? Oh yeah, that is what I came here for. Peering off toward the lower right edge of the massive cloud, I thought I saw it. Was that the typical faint white-blue disk of the moon just creeping above the horizon, or was I fooling myself? It was, and so I wasn't.

[Photo: Snow shower curtain and pueblo ruins, Wupatki National Monument, Arizona.
Click on image for larger version.]

Hoping that it would rise up into another gap in a few minutes, I waited. And waited. And...finally made a few more shots of the darkening cloud bank above the ruins and the Antelope Plains.

It turned out to be a very nice series. No killer moonrise shots. Only a fleeting glimpse. But some amazing golden hour landscape shots. Time and effort well spent.

On the drive back south, the moon rose above the clouds. Its bright silvery patterned disk followed me the rest of the way home.

You might also be interested in my Grand Canyon Photography blog.

Planning Moonrise Shoots with The Photographer's Emphemeris

[Photo: Moonrise above the pines.
Click on image for larger version.]

Ok, so let's say that you know the Full Moon is coming in a few days and you want to be ready, to have a good location planned for the moonrise in the early evening (or moonset in the morning).

Unless you're using a brightly lit cityscape as the landscape, the best evenings to get great moonrise shots are the night before the full moon, or sometimes even two nights before.

Why? Because on the night of the actual full moon it usually comes up too late to have enough natural light from sunset-time to illuminate the scenery. And, again, for nature landscapes if you wait until the full moon you will merely have a bright round disk in the black sky and nothing else.

The moon rises approximately 40 minutes later each day. Thus it rises about 40 minutes earlier each day, too. So your moonrise scenes the night before (or two nights before) the full moon will have a naturally lit landscape with the moon so close to full that it's hard to tell it's still a day or two shy of full.

But where in the eastern sky will the moon rise this time? It varies by month, through the seasons. It doesn't always rise straight due east. Far from it.

Fortunately there is a free computer app on the Web called The Photographer's Ephemeris (TPE) that takes the guesswork out of it. Go to http://photoephemeris.com/ and install it on your machine. (There is even a smart phone app available for a small fee, for you wild and crazy on the go types).

Then open that puppy up and type in the location you want to check out. TPE then shows the moonrise/moonset and sunrise/sunset for each day that week. You can jump ahead to any date on the calendar. (The light blue line is where the moon will rise; the dark blue the angle at which it will set). Along with the azimuth (angle in degrees on a compass, if you want to get that accurate).

Also onscreen (see below) is a Google Map for your location, with colored lines depicting the direction of moonrise/moonset, etc.

But you don't have to be a surveyor to make great use of this tool, and easily. Here is a real world example from earlier this month.

Let's say that you have a local volcano that you would love to have the moon rise over, so you can zoom in on both and thrill your fans on Google+. (What, you don't live near a volcano? Really? There are many old volcanoes here near Flagstaff, Arizona. So if you want one to photograph, move here.)

Anyway, one of my favorite local volcanoes is on the Coconino National Forest about 12 miles north of town, and there is a big mountain meadow named Bonito Park that has a clear view of this 1,000 foot tall volcano named Sunset Crater almost smack dab to the east. Where the moon will rise, somewhere. Perfect.

I started with my TPE map set on downtown Flagstaff, to get an idea of the direction in which the moon would rise. Way north of East at this time of the year. Meaning way north of Sunset Crater, like I figured having seen it much the same last month.

To verify, I zoomed in on the map and moved the red "pin" to where I knew the turnout on the entrance road along Bonito Park is. Yep, looks like the moon will rise well to the north of the stately young (only about 950 years old) volcano.

As you can see from my highly technical in-the-field photo illustration, the moon did rise as predicted, affording no closeup of our beautiful lunar satellite rising over the big cinder cone. Only a wide angle shot, though it was fine enough, considering.

Note that even at dusk like this, you can capture the Earth's shadow on the eastern horizon if you have a clear enough view, and detail in the foreground, etc. If I had waited until the following evening all I would have had was the bright moon in a black sky.

Skipping ahead month by month on TPE's calendar, I see the moon's angle traveling steadily southward, toward due East. In April it looks like it will rise right over the behemoth. Guess where I'll be the night before Full Moon in April. And the night before that, for good measure.

So why don't I merely Photoshop the moon in, over the volcano? That's no fun to me. By studying what's going on, where the moon and sun will be through the seasons, is a large part of the satisfaction.

But that's just me. You do what you want.

You might also be interested in my Grand Canyon Photography blog.

July Moonrise, Northern Arizona

[Photo: Summer moonrise, Antelope Hills,
northern Arizona.]

Today was the day before the official Full Moon. Meaning that the moon would rise a little before sunset, when it's still light enough to include the landscape in the photograph.

So I headed out to the cinder cones near Sunset Crater volcano, north of Flagstaff. The National Forest land there is open enough to afford many nice views.

The moon crested the ridge to the east while it was still very light. I photographed as the sky soon turned blue and pink with the Earth's shadow at sunset. This shot is one of my favorite from this session.

(Click on the image for a larger version)

See more of my photography at www.NaturalMoment.com.

You might also be interested in my Grand Canyon Photography blog.