Rough Seas

I was out and about today and I took a ride by the light house, as you can seem to find a picture or two.  The seas were a little rough today and the tides have been running high this week.  I managed to grab a few good ones, there was an old lobster trap that had washed ashore that made for a nice touch in a few of the photos I thought.  I also today decided to take a few pictures in black and white and see how those came out.

 

Super Moon Day 2

We really lucked out tonight for a second night in a row with perfect viewing weather for the super moon.  Tonight I wanted to try and go for a longer exposure of the moon that would have given off some good light with some reflection on the water.  Things did not work out as the moon came up in a little different spot than I had planned.  I should have checked my app on my IPOD, but it totally slipped my mind.

When you get all set up and then have to adjust on the fly, it’s only a short period of time and things are crazy.  To make a long story short I did not get what I was after.  As I have said I am learning more everyday when it comes to this and what went wrong tonight taught me a few things.  First even though the long exposure did not work out, I moved away from the longer shutter speeds so I did not have to use my tripod as camera shake was no longer an issue.  Moving to a faster shutter speed actually brought out a deeper color in the moon and I was able to see more detail on the surface itself.  As I mentioned last night you have to remember the moon is very bright especially this moon and that can really affect the photo in many ways.

In all it was a great weekend with the super moon.  I threw in a sunrise photo of the lighthouse form this morning as well, even though I take a good number of shoots from this spot it never seems to get old!

Super Moon

Tonight was the super moon.  I am sure many of you have heard that it was suppose to be an amazing sight to behold and it did not disappoint!  First I want to begin with those who have said that the recent event in Japan might have been cause by the super moon.  I am not sure if you can make a connection, however I did find something interesting on the net a week or so ago shortly after the event in Japan.  I found out that the Indonesia tsunami actually occurred two weeks before a super moon that occurred in 2005.  It should also be noted that not long after that we experienced a major blizzard here in New England in which parts of the area saw upwards of 30 inches of snow.  Again there nothing to prove that the super moon causes these events, maybe someone can do some more research and maybe a connection can be made in the future.  We are lucky that there were no major storms this week as the super moon has brought tides that are close to 11.5 feet, flood stage in Scituate is 12 feet so it would not have taken much to cause some serious issues.  Let’s move onto the pictures and talk a little about the outing.

I have to admit I was a little nervous when I was out earlier in the day and there was a good deck of clouds that had moved in off the water as the winds came out of the North East for a good part of the day.  Luckily however as the day went on the clouds broke and you were left with a perfect day and clear skies!  I actually have an app on my IPod touch it cost me $7.00, but it was well worth it.  Basically it shows you where the sun and moon both rise and set at any given location.  The screen displays a Google earth map and you mark you position and it shows you the best angle in regards to your surroundings in my case tonight I was interested in where the moon was going to be in relation to the light house.  I actually had a perfect spot right down on Jericho Road here in Scituate!  I thought I was going to be the only one out there tonight but was I wrong!

I actually went out with my friend Patty D, we left my house around 6:20 as the moon was going to be up at just past 7:00, but I wanted to give myself plenty of time to set up shop and get position.  As we pulled up to the area there had to have already been 30 people set up with tri pods and everything else you could imagine to try and get the perfect shoot.  I went to my spot that my app had showed would be the best to get the best shoot of the moon and the light house combo and I noticed that the crowed of now about 75 people was a good 300 yards to my right!  I thought about moving but then I came to the conclusion I was going to trust the app and stay where I was.  Sure enough as the moon cracked the horizon I realized I was in the perfect spot!  The pictures themselves are not perfect far from it but not bad for my first night session with the camera, never mind with a full moon added to the mix!

The moon is a tricky thing to shoot because allot of people forget that the moon is very bright, obviously this was the case tonight and if you over expose the photo you are just going to get a big white blob that does not do much for the photo.  In short you have to play around with the aperture and shutter speeds to try and get a good take.  I will leave it at that and let you guys be the judge comment are more than welcome!