As a small child, I remember my dad telling me a story about the "Bunny Moon", in which the moon was actually inhabited by a large colony of bunnies that spent an entire month making rice for their monthly festival. You knew it was time for them to eat all the rice when the moon was full because rice was white and if you turned the man in the moon's face sideways, it looked like a giant bunny. I have no idea where he got the story from but I distinctly remember the day I realized rabbits couldn't sustain life on the moon and I diligently worked hard to keep my father from ever having his heart crushed by finding out what I had learned. So every month until probably my early pre-teen years, I excitedly nodded and told him I could see the bunnies on the moon too and I secretly hoped if he ever found out there weren't ACTUALLY rabbits on the moon, he would still enjoy seeing its beauty. I think I was in my mid-twenties when I found out my dad always knew and had been trying to protect me from the same reality I tried to hide from him. Great minds think alike, right?
When I was 19 years old, I took an astronomy class in college and we got to use telescopes that were literally worth more than the cost of my entire education there. My teacher was mean, impossible to understand, and I'm pretty sure he hated me and graded me intentionally lower than everyone else... however, he couldn't stop me from looking into that telescope and watching the craters of the moon slide out of vision from the viewfinder, proving that we really were moving through the universe, even when it didn't feel like it from so many thousands of miles away.
It's easy to take the moon for granted when it's just a giant night light in the sky but to see it up-close, to see the craters, the mountains, the shadows on the surface, it was breathtaking. The only thing more beautiful I've ever seen in my life was looking at the rings of Saturn through an even bigger telescope. But that's a story for another time. Tonight, my love is the moon.
Everyone has been talking about this "once in a lifetime" super harvest blood moon lunar trifecta. As a professional photographer, shooting the moon has always been a daunting task, since I'm dyslexic can never seem to remember if night skies are fast shutter speeds and large apertures or small apertures and long shutters. And then you have to take into account the factors of earth's orbit and light pollution. Light is the worst. Ironically, also the most important and necessary. I almost decided not to go for it. I've seen blood moons, I've seen lunar eclipses, I've seen super moons, like I said, it's easy to take for granted. But then my mom texted me. She asked if if I would be willing to try to take some pictures for her because it was so beautiful down in San Diego. That was all it took.
I got in my car with my camera bag, 5 lenses, my tripod, and absolutely no idea where I was going. I got on the highway and just sorta drove east until I couldn't see any city lights. I wound up in another city (not sure which one but it was probably 15 miles east of where I live) way out in the county. There was a dead-end sign on a residential street that looked promising, but as I got to the actual cul-de-sac at the end, I realized this is exactly the type of place a girl traveling alone late at night on a dark street in an unfamiliar city gets brutally murdered by the psychotic serial killer fugitive escapee who just broke out of prison and decided to hide in the woods because a fucking super moon brought everyone out of their homes and he had to go into hiding.
Yeah.... pretty much the fastest u-turn I've ever made in my life. However, further up the road I was able to find a safe place to pull over and still get a perfect shot of the moon.
At first, all I could see was a sliver of orange in the blackness of night but it slowly lit up to a more full orange, then red, then, as the earth's shadow passed over, a but of white finally started to peek through into a beautiful ombre of reds and rusty orange. My only regret is that I let someone get under my skin and haven't been wearing my glasses as much lately because two guys I work with constantly tell me how unattractive I look with my glasses (which I happened to love until they made me feel ugly) and how I shouldn't wear them because I "look way better without them" and because got into a recent habit of not wearing them, I let two jerks make me second guess my meaningless exterior and it resulted in my pictures not come out as sharp as when I found my spare pair of glasses in my car.
By the time I put them on, the eclipse was nearly over and the colour had returned to a regular white so I missed out on a once in a lifetime photo opportunity. While I'm disappointed to know part of me is perpetually 13-years-old and easily shattered at the whim of mean boys, it's a good reminder that beauty comes in many forms and anyone who can't see it isn't worth ruining something as special as tonight was. I know there are far better photographers out there than me with even more expensive cameras and longer lenses but I also know that without an adventurer's heart, it's just another picture of the moon.
There's a thrill you get on an adventure; never knowing where exactly you'll end up or if it will all be for naught. While I was sad that I had no one to share the adventure with me on my drive, my heart was joyful to know that 2,200 miles away, my boyfriend was out in a field in northeast Texas looking at the same moon through his telescope. When I got back. I saw he had texted me a picture of the moon from his camera phone, which appeared as a tiny red spot on a black square. I excitedly shared one of my pictures with him, and he replied "you win." It wasn't my intention to compete, but he made me laugh pretty hard.
I have no idea why the moon is so symbolic of romance, why Harry Connick Jr makes me turn into a giant puddle of starry-eyed nonsense, or why I have such an insatiable desire to take off in my car at any given moment, but I'm grateful for tonight. The world is lacking far too much romance these days and while this is more often than not, the secret place I go to hide my ridiculous notions of love an romance, I'm glad all the mean boys in the footsteps behind me haven't had a chance to ruin my hopes of love. I've still got that. And the moon.
(All photos shot with Canon 5DMarkII)
Beginning of the end of the eclipse
I accidentally slowed my shutter speed and caught this incredible shot of the moon in orbit. :)
At the end of the eclipse (when I finally found my glasses)
I have no idea where I was, but I don't think I've ever seen so many stars in my entire life
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