MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2023 #10 - BLUE MOON, A FOURTH FULL MOON DURING THE SEASON

It was a little less haze in the air today and I decided to chase the full moon, the second one during the month of August, also called a ”Blue Moon”, due to the fact that it is the fourth full moon during a season. As mentioned in my last blog post yesterday, the moon would rise even further to the east and having a photo with the moon low above the water of the Mississippi River wasn’t really an option around here. I wanted to do something different and chose the location for the camera much closer to the city of Dubuque, and just a bit above water level this time. Moonrise was exactly half an hour later than yesterday, sunset about fifteen minutes earlier, and making the click and process the image in post was a different kind of challenge as I found out in front of my computer. What you see in the photo is the romance I felt when the moon showed up above this island in the river. The green of the leaves in the trees is still lush, despite the heat we had recently. There were quite a few boats making a ”full moon river cruise” on the Mississippi. I was happy to keep them all out of the frame and enjoyed having the end of the dike, that protects Dubuque, Iowa from flooding, just for myself…

ANOTHER DAY, DIFFERENT CLOUDS, BIGGER MOON

Not as many clouds as the day before yesterday evening but beauty everywhere. When I took a series of shots at this scene I thought already, the cell phone tower behind the barn has to go away in post process. To be honest, I do not like too many “contemporary” elements in my landscape photos. But back home at the computer I changed my mind for this image. The waxing moon was at 68% last night, 11% more than the day before, and the tall tower points exactly at it and kinda leads the eye there.

MEDICINE ROCKS - FINALLY THE MILKY WAY

It wasn’t until almost the end of our trip that it was possible to make a night picture that included the Milky Way. We had many clear nights and light pollution by human-made light sources was very little most of the time in the Dakotas and Montana. But it was the moon that came up every night, bright and beautiful, that cancelled every effort. Finally at Medicine Rocks in Montana we were able to see and capture a little more of the universe we live in. I tried exposure times between 15 and 30 seconds and ISO settings from 3200 to 6400. Only for a few shots I went vertical with the camera but at home, in front of the computer screen, I found that these photos work actually better than all the images in landscape orientation.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4, Induro GIT 404XL tripod, RRS BH-55 ball head, Vello cable release,   @16 mm, 20 s, f/4, ISO6400

MOON AND CLOUDS IN MOTION

Moon light and clouds over Little Missouri National Grassland, North Dakota

Most nights during our trip out west we had moon light giving the landscape some shape. That was great and led to opportunities for night photography. The downside, as everybody knows, is making the Milky Way the subject of an image, this was not an option, except for the days at the end of the trip.

We had this National Forest campsite just outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park almost for ourselves. When the moon light touched the fence, that was there to keep the cattle out, and clouds moved fast across the sky, I tried a 69 second exposure to make the dynamic in the sky visible. The light reflected by the fence leads into the picture. The stars show already a little trail. I have more photos with shorter exposure time and blending two pictures together would be an option, but I still like how this turned out.

THE CASTLES

We discovered this little gem in the northwest corner of South Dakota already five years ago and had it on our list of places we wanted to revisit since. 

Castles National Landmark is located in the Slim Buttes land unit in South Dakota. The Castles are a massive sandstone remnant which originated as a volcanic ash deposit and resemble a medieval castle. (source: USDA - Forest Service)

This time we camped at this location and that gave us the chance to photograph these interesting rock formations during day light and of course during a wonderful sunset. As a bonus the moon was up already and made it worth to be included in some of the photos.

PASSING BY

Greater White-fronted Geese

Not a full moon but pretty close. I made this picture yesterday at 600 mm focal length. Most of the Greater White-fronted Geese managed to fly around but finally I found a few that would pass in front of the moon. The trick is to predict the path the geese would take and track them by panning with the lens. If you pre-focus on the moon and just wait until a bird flies by, the geese would be most likely just blurry. The warm light on the birds creates a nice color contrast to the cool background and leaves no doubt about when this shot was taken.

GEESE MIGRATION

I was afraid I would miss the migration of the Greater White-fronted Geese while I was out of town this week. Luckily they were present in the wetlands this evening and during the last hour before sunset thousands flew through the Mississippi Valley and finally away from the river. Unfortunately they didn’t land in the fields that border the Green Island Wetlands like last year, when the fields were mostly flooded.

I chose a position on the west side of the bird sanctuary, with the sun in my back, but wasn’t close enough for the majority of the geese. The waxing moon had good visibility and my hope was to make some pictures with geese flying in front of it. Well the photo above was the closest I got for this goal. With the moon as an anchor point and a thin wave of Greater White-fronted Geese flying away from it, negative space fills most of the frame. Not a bad thing in my books…

Greater White-fronted Geese, Mississippi Valley, Green Island Wetlands

Still a long way to go. Their breeding ground is in Alaska and far-northern Canada.

TWO WAYS TO TELL TONIGHT’S STORY

Canada Geese, Mississippi River, Mud Lake, Iowa,

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, @70 mm, 1/1250s, f/6.3, ISO800

During my recent presentation at the Dubuque Camera Club about storytelling in wildlife photography I stated to take the camera with us, wherever we may go. I’m sure glad I did tonight when I took Cooper, the dog, down to the Mississippi River for a walk. The sun had disappeared already behind the bluffs, light was fading away fast, and I thought there wouldn’t be much to photograph. And boy, was I wrong! Hundreds of Canada Geese crossed the river in groups, flying towards the setting sun.

There were at least two ways to make a click and tell the story, and I tried to accomplish both. In the western sky was the glow of the setting sun with some hazy clouds, and to the east, over the river, was the moon. The shot aiming the lens at the sunset was indeed predictable. The geese fly in V-formation and I wanted to bring that somehow in connection with the clouds and the sun light.

Nikon D750, Nikkor 70-200mm / f4, @70 mm, 1/500s, f/5, ISO800

The other photo, with the geese flying “through” the moon, required a little bit of luck. Many flocks crossed the Mississippi this evening and I just waited for the right moment. You can’t really pan with the camera, follow the flock, and shoot with a slower shutter speed in order to keep the ISO low and the digital noise out of the picture. This would result in an even more blurred moon. I had to set ISO to 800 for maintaining a shutter speed of 1/500s. Not that this one is perfect, but it was pretty much how I saw it with the thin layer of haze in front of it.

‘FULL SNOW MOON’

1/160 s, f/11, ISO 100, 850 mm (1275 mm DX mode)   -----------    

Beside the ‘Full Snow Moon’ (the traditional name for the full moon that occurs in February) observers across North America had a chance to see a penumbral lunar eclipse tonight. I may have been a little too late for watching the eclipse and we had still a hazy cloud cover when I went outside. A penumbral eclipse is rather subtle, however, I didn’t see really any unusual shading of the moon. 

Tomorrow night comet 45P/ Honda-Mrkos-Pajdušáková makes its closest approach to earth. The comet has been visible for months but tomorrow night is supposed to be the best view. Lots of things going on in the sky this weekend… ;-)

I haven’t done any photography of the moon since a long time but tonight I thought it would be a good reason to do it again. By mounting the Sigma 150-600 mm plus the 1.4x teleconverter to the camera I had a focal length of 850 mm. I could have cropped the image but I like to get it right in camera. By selecting the DX-mode in the Nikon D750 (using only a part of the sensor) I have the viewing angle of a 1275 mm lens. With other words, the photo reflects what I saw in the viewfinder tonight. I shot from our balcony but this wooden structure vibrates with any movement that occurs. To minimize vibrations a cable release was used and the camera was set to ‘Mirror-up’ mode. I tried manual focus as well as autofocus and both worked good. I started with a fixed white balance of 4000k but found it was a little to bluish. Setting the camera to Auto-White Balance resulted in about 4750 K and I think that looks more natural.

CHOOSING BLACK & WHITE

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4, @ 16 mm, 1/200s, f/10, ISO 100

Although the moon is in the picture it wasn’t the light source for this image. The setting sun painted the rugged slopes at “Canonball Concretions" in Theodore Roosevelt National Park orange. It sure was a great color contrast with the steel blue sky, and I may show some color photo of this place sometime. I saw this photo in B&W already in my mind while pushing the shutter button, and I like the result...

NIGHT GLOW

Last night it was the first time that we managed to be at the Great Galena Balloon Race over in Galena, Illinois. We arrived in time for the famous night glow of the balloons. Photographing balloons at night was a first for me and it was an enjoyable learning experience and some “candy for the eyes”. Having a tripod is a must for a halfway decent photo, unless you like to use blur as an artistic mean of expression, which IMHO is a valid way to go. As with many events where people gather by the hundreds, if not thousands, keeping the picture free of clutter (other people, golf carts, picknick coolers, etc.) is difficult, but something you need to have an eye on.

I went out with the Nikkor 24-120 mm, f/4 attached to the D750 and this was not a bad choice. The glowing of all balloons at the same time is announced over loud speakers but you only have a few seconds to make your shots. The zoom lens allows for quick changes.

Back home and in front of my computer I try to analyze where the mistakes were made and what really worked to tell the story about this event. I enjoyed this challenge very much and hope to have another chance to try it again soon.

On our way back to the car we saw this constellation of “heavenly” bodies above the road and trees. The moon was behind a thin layer of clouds while Jupiter and Venus were clearly visible despite the light pollution from nearby cities.