I missed photographing the last few high profile celestial events, but I wasn't going to let happen with today's Super Blood Moon Eclipse Extravaganza. While DC won't get much of the eclipse, I wanted to at least attempt to grab a few pics of the moon in its super sized form. So I set my alarm for 3am, and by 4am, I had my tripod set up on the DC Mall ready to snap away.
I managed to grab pictures of the moon, the Capital Building and the Washington Monument. However, I wasn't able to create the composition of my dreams, where the moon was juxtaposed to the scenery. So I cheated, and used The Gimp to copy and paste the moon pic into place. So while the photos below were all snapped this morning, including the picture of the moon, the compositions are totally invented.
It was a humbling experience standing outside at 4am, in 24°F conditions, grabbing these photos. On paper, it's all so simple. In the field, everything from getting the scene in focus to dealing with numb fingers was a challenge. Though I do have to say, the DC Mall is the ideal place to experiment with this type of photography. The place was empty (finally, parking in DC was easy!), yet it's lit up enough and trafficked by security enough, that it feels safe.
I'll definitely be back. Though, maybe I'll try a bit of night photography in the summer.
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