The Water Pump & Moon ( the controversial )

Thanks for the second invitation to photograph moon and earth in a single exposure. I'll pass, though, much as I imagine you'd pass up an invitation to photograph some of your male friends in the nude. Seems like a completely specious and unnecessary invitation to me but, again, thanks.

The invitation, Fred, is above all to those who criticized Bela for not getting it in a single exposure. I think that such criticisms miss the mark, but I would not want to be thought to be criticizing those who have tried it, either. I think that, when the earth and moon are up in the sky at the same time, it can be done easily enough--sunny sixteen can capture both in some cases, since the moon is in full sun. Other times, as in Kahn's or Jolly's photos above, getting the correct exposure is going to be dicier.

The real problem comes in getting the correct exposure when it is very dark. That is when the value of Bela's technique can be most appreciated, since it is almost impossible to get both in a single exposure under those circumstances. Bela did what he had to do to realize the artistic vision that he wanted.

Did I mention that I liked it?

I can appreciate the fruits of both types of effort, for what it's worth.

--Lannie

Oops! I meant to say, "when the sun and the moon are up in the sky at the same time."

--Lannie

This is not one of Bela's better images. Jeremy has covered most of the comments I would offer regarding the present photo. It is a nice composition, but unfortunately the subject matter lets that down (especially the oversize moon, nondescript foregound and an oftseen windmill against a featureless sky) and the print, or more likely the digital B&W image, has a very limited tone appearance (yes, there are whites and blacks, but they are overpowered) and what I would simply describe in an equivalent print as muddy. There are some excellent photos in Bela's extensive portfolio, in particular some semi-abstract colour images, and some B&W photos that excite my senses and mind, but this is very definitely not one of them. If the elves were seeking an image with more soul than this, they could have found it a bit deeper into Bela's portfolio.

Imagine that Bela had been standing ten to twelve times further away from the windmill and had shot it and the moon simultaneouslywith a 500mm lens. The proportions would be approximately what one sees here:

[LINK]

This shot was made with a 400mm lens on a 50D. It consists of a single exposure. (Don just wrote me to tell me.)

I am quite intrigued by this genre of night shots. The very starkness and simplicity which some do not like are precisely what I find most appealing. The fact that Don got his shot with a single exposure and Bela with two does not bother me in the least. So many shots with an enormous moon look phony. What is remarkable about Bela's shot is that it really does not look phony, at least not as viewed through a 500mm lens, which is precisely what it was shot with.

--Lannie

I'm not sure what happened to the link to Don Cayo's photo to which I just alluded, since at no point did I access the page which the link brings up.

Here it is again:

[LINK]

As I said above, it was made with a 400mm lens on a 50D. It consists of a single exposure and thus provides to me an interesting counterpoint to Bela's which was made with two.

--Lannie

@Lannie ... but the angle of the tilt is important for determining latitude ...

Agreed, but not very accurately, the seasons have a large effect also. Bela didn't necessarily rotate the moon. The angle of the crescent is 13 degrees. In the northern hemisphere, in the winter, the tilt of the earth would subtract 23 degrees from the apparent latitude. So, not even accounting for the 5 degree inclination of the moon orbit (math is very complicated), this could have been taken as high as 36 degrees latitude at sunrise, well within the US southwest (where Bela seems to have taken many other images).

Looking over Bela's portfolio, he has a long history of commanding the position of the moon and planets. Neat photo, and a terrific portfolio. Congrats Bela!

Cheers Bela , thanks for taking the time to let me (let us) know the important details of shooting the specific image. I don't have much more to add than the already mentioned here, besides the fact, that I like the lone communication of the mill and the moon. And although the foreground deserted like it is, strengthens that loneliness, there comes a big moon, smooth, with a soft (moon) light to ease that feeling. My humble opinion for a photo that I like. Take care!

I can't vouch for the numbers, Matthew, but I know that, when the moon is near Gemini, one can see what seems to be a virtually level crescent from time to time from where I live at 35 degrees 40 minutes north (in North Carolina, northeast of Charlotte). I had reason to believe that this photo was taken further north than that. I see now from the version in the other folder that it was shot in Utah, which puts it somewhere between 37 and 42 degrees north latitude.

Yes, I can imagine that the math would be very complicated. I certainly would not know where to begin.

--Lannie

I don't want to bore everybody with the exposure question, but as one who has tried to get moon/earth shots (and usually failed to get both properly exposed), I thought that these two variations of the same shot by Judy Hamilton just might be of some interest to anyone out there who tries to do the kinds of moon shots that Bela, Don, and others manage to do so well:

[LINK]

[LINK]

I presume that Judy adjusted the exposure in post-processing here, since they are clearly from the same digital file.

I hate to keep emphasizing the technical questions, but issues of technique often have to be understood in order to get the overall artistic (or other) effect that one is striving for. Sometimes there is no alternative to Photoshop for getting the effect that one wants. At other times, there just might be.

--Lannie

Bela, congratulations. This is for me the ultimate beauty.. Jana

"the ultimate beauty". Really Jana. Is there any way you can expand on this? I just can't imagine that this is the most beautiful image you have ever seen. What are the shapes, forms and colours/tones here that are so aesthetically pleasing to you? I'm sincerely interested....please help. JJ

That was really the only comment I had to make regarding this photo, realizing there is much more that could be said. I thought Bela's integration of the moon into the surrounding sky was very well done; most such attempts fail because the human eye is so incredibly good at picking up slight differences in tone, shade and other differences in two objects originally photographed in different light. Bela had an advantage in that the enlarged moon was shot in the same light at (nearly) the same time as the original exposure, and I imagine that made the integration so much easier.

I'll admit I'm a bit surprised that folks don't seem to be expressing an opinion about the altered moon, but are instead dealing with exposure, probable latitude location, and general composition questions. To my eye, the enlarged moon is the most significant feature of Bela's POW. Personally, I'm somewhat ambivalent about it, but I recognize that this was Bela's intention and I've limited my comments to the technical success of what he set out to do.

Windmills used to be much more common on the landscape than they are now. I no longer describe these as "oft seen" structures in the part of the Pacific Northwest in which I live (they are more common in my home state of Montana). I've searched a three-county area for a windmill that might be photographed, and have found only one (which I have photographed) with several missing blades; those blades have continued to fall off, and today it doesn't look much like a former windmill. Fred made what I thought was a good point about passing up shots we'd like to take if the elements don't come together sufficiently to make a good photograph; in my mental calculus, these structures are now so few and far between that I'm likely to accept undesirable structures like water storage tanks that seem to clutter more than contribute to the photograph and get the best possible composition, as I think Bela did here.

The bottom line for me is that Bela's photograph brings back memories of traveling on gravel roads and camping in very rural parts of several states at a time of day in which many elements wind down for the day and other elements come to life at night. That transition is a special time for which I hold a special fondness, and Bela's photograph does a pretty good job of triggering those memories. For me, it would be even better if the moon had not been enlarged, but Bela and I obvious find different things that we like in this kind of a scene, and I want to limit my comments about this to the technical skill Bela showed in bringing an enlarged moon into the scene.

You could probably hang a shiny gum wrapper on a string and some people would stand in awe!

I don't mean to be critical here but when one makes a composite image, I think the result should be an impeccable composition or be very meaningful or insightful in some way. Here, the foreground is just not attractive in any way. It is very static and clunky. The moon, while integrated very well, doesn't feel real. I could live with that if there was something else to grab onto--composition, an idea, something?!? Here, it is just an effect in what I might consider to be more an exercise than a purposeful image.

I just read Stephen's comment and I can understand some emotional attachment to objects, but then we should still separate what makes a successful image from emotional attachments.

I am fine with exercises but I am not sure that this image extends its reach beyond that. That technical aspect appears to be well done, as it was in many other of Bela's images.

The recent comments refer in large part to the technical aspects of the image, as if that were really enough to qualify it as a good or bad image. Last week's POW didn't see much overall technological evaluation as this one of Bela, but rather it received some criticism for a less than perfect rendition (artefacts or slight noise or whatever) of an outstretched arm, of one amongst many persons figuring in the overall composition. The other end of the technical photographer's worship of details.

Most photo.Net critiques are true to form it seems in exhibiting the Photo.Net paradigm of attaining a Holy Grail of technical perfection. It is a very unfortunate and limiting paradigm, and one that I doubt would acquire much place in the critiques of a really engaging art exhibition or a retrospective of a known artist. Most of us who have photographed successfully for a decade or even less and who have stayed with the craft have become proficient in regard to technical aspects of the image and knowledgeable about the usual dogma of golden rules, or the rule of two thirds, or other common or simply graphical aspects of use of point, line and form.

What is unfortunately lacking in many discussions here is the ability or the desire to critique an image in regard to its artistic and emotional pull on the viewer, at least the ability to explain and justify it where it exists, or, equally importantly (if we consider the role of a photograph is to communicate), where it does not exist, for a particular viewer.

As long as the desirable symbolic, intellectual, emotional (true emotional, and not just a curiosity for a little seen object) , enigmatic and transcendental qualities of an image are subjugated to technical "niceties" and not held up as mirrors, thereupon substantiated or rejected as regards the image, the critiques will happily subscribe to photography 101 or to the sometimes boring comments similar to those of less than apt judges at a camera club competition.

Ah, John, but Bela did not hang a shiny gum wrapper but the MOON!

Arthur, if hanging the moon has no emotional impact on you, then you are dead, dead, dead. The discussions of technique are valid and interesting, but they are not what draws one to the image, rather what one analyzes as a means to the end. As to why the photo works, one might as well ask why the starry night sky works, or a flower in spring. That sort of thing I don't have to analyze, don't want to analyze--couldn't analyze it I tried.

One does not have to justify or explain why one likes an image. One either does or does not.

--Lannie

"O swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest thy love prove likewise variable."
--Juliet to Romeo

Viewers are easily romanced by a moon, any moon, even a honking big one . . . and most sunsets . . . oh, and babies, don't forget babies.

One does not have to justify or explain why one likes an image. One either does or does not. One might as well ask someone to analyze before one makes the shot. That would kill it for me. Neither a priori nor ex post facto do I feel the slightest compunction to explain why I like something. That would just slow me down when I go out to shoot, and it will not and would not and could not make me one whit better as a photographer.

--Lannie

<<<One does not have to justify or explain why one likes an image. One either does or does not.>>>

In a critique forum, it actually does help if one explains their likes. As a matter of fact, it's the stated policy of this forum to delete simple declarations of "like" though few here have done that. Lannie, you did explain why you like it. I can appreciate that even if I don't agree.

<<<As to why the photo works, one might as well ask why the starry night sky works, or a flower in spring.>>>

Actually, I think one might want to ask why a PHOTO of a starry night sky works, or a PHOTO of a flower in spring works. Then we'd be gettin' somewhere, if we noticed the difference between a PICTURE of a moon and a moon.

Here is Donna Pallotta on taking photos:

Fred, analyzing why we like something is not a requirement of the forum. It is not even a requirement of esthetics, though many have tried. Technical analysis and esthetic analysis are two very different things. I want to know how to get a certain vision, and technique can help me there, but no one and nothing can compel me to explain why I want that vision in the first place, or why I see that vision when I abstract from it to take a photo--and, yes, everybody on the site knows the difference between the photo and the thing that it is a photo of.

(I had to misspell one of Dona's words because PN's autocensor would not let me spell it for her correctly, even when she was referring to herself.)

--Lannie

Dead, dead, dead. OK, you may be right, Lannie, as this recent photo may attest (still waiting for critiques in the critique forum). But my shadow is in the sunshine and shadows are often more interesting than their real object. Have you ever tried to find, or understand, the shadow of the moon?

Sorry, forgot my shadow...

That is above my head, Arthur. I have seen the shadow of the moon racing toward me during a total solar eclipse, but I am quite sure that that is not what you mean.

Cat Stevens claimed to have been followed by a moonshadow. I think that I know what he meant, because I felt it.

--Lannie

I do not like this picture. This photo illustration is well done, save the small aspect of the implausibility of looking into the setting sun and seeing the moon rise. It would be behind the photographer opposite the sunset. That and the over-sized moon is a device so overdone it becomes a cliche no matter how skillfully applied. Astronomical reality notwithstanding, perhaps a smaller moon would feel more natural and less obvious. Clearly, Bela has a creative eye for composition with a romantic sensibility. This particular image, however, misses the mark with me.