September’s Harvest Moon

Posted in Moon, Moonrise, Nikon, Photography, Santa Cruz CA, Walton LighthouseTagged , , , , , , , ,

Copyright ©2016 Deborah M. Zajac. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

A friend and I went over the hill to Santa Cruz, CA this month to photograph the Moon rising above Walton Lighthouse.   We both really like having water in the image, and pretty foregrounds.

We knew there wouldn’t be much time to shoot since the Moon would need time to climb to get above the Lighthouse, and it’s getting dark earlier.

When we got out of the car and looked at the horizon and lighthouse we groaned. There was a thick band of fog just sitting on the horizon.  We wouldn’t see the Moon until it got above that! Time wouldn’t be on our side.

The sun had set and the sky was getting darker…finally I saw the top of the Moon above the fog bank.

Harvest Moon 2016

The Moon got high enough for me to make it out almost completely.

2016 Harvest Moon

It finally got out of the Fog only to be obscured again.  I tried to get a few more images, but it was getting too dark to keep the foreground in the image, and I wanted that.  I was also a bit frustrated with the wind, and shaking from the passing cars which shook my rig, and the pier I was photographing from. I deleted quite a few blurry images.

The color of the Moon was gorgeous though, and it was big being so close to the horizon. It would have looked much larger when it was just above that tree line if I could have seen it then.  Maybe next month. 🙂

“The September Moon is called the Harvest Moon or Corn Moon because this is the time to finish harvesting the corn and other crops before Winter. The bright moonlight gives farmers a little extra time to harvest their crops before the first day of Fall. “~sfgate.com

Nikon Df| Nikkor 200-500mm| Delkin Digital Film| PS CC 2015.5

More to come…

34 thoughts on “September’s Harvest Moon”

  4. I remember the harvest moon from when I was a child. We lived in the country so there weren’t any city light and it was so bright and close. I remember us calling it a cherry moon because of its reddish glow. Great capture!! 🙂

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  7. Incredible shot! I’ve attempted photos of various moons (well the same one, at different times 😉 ) before, but have never managed to capture it properly, but this is spectacular!

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    1. Thank you so much Joanne! I love the rosy, and amethyst hue the Belt of Venus lends the sky too.

      Getting that lighthouse under the moonrise in perfect light only happens a couple months a year. It doesn’t look this is going to be the year I get a clear sky with the Moon and Lighthouse. It lines up next month from a great shooting location, but it will be too dark by the time it rises above the Lighthouse to get both in the frame in one shot.

      This is why I end up going back to the same locations over and over again each year. 🙂

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  16. Very nice work, Deborah. I really like the first one, with the moon just peeking out a bit. I can almost feel your frustration. I’ve taken pictures from a highway bridge, and the vibrations are nasty. It makes you think when you’re driving over that bridge later on. I’m really impressed at how much planning you put into these photo shoots.

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