I was out at Marlatt Park last weekend with one of my photography classes and we lucked into a great shooting situation. The light was pretty good with a decent sunset, but the best part of the evening occurred as the last group of students and I were leaving.
As we turned to go back up the trail we were greeted with this view of the nearly full moon rising above the horizon.
The moon is a lot brighter than many people think and it is often hard to get the moon properly exposed and still have enough light to retain detail in the foreground. However, between 1-3 days before the actual full moon is almost always a perfect time to balance the exposure between moon and ground as the moon rises and the sun sets. This happened to be the day before the 100% full moon. We were also in a perfect position on the side of a hill so as the moon rose higher in the sky, we were able to back down the hill and keep the moon close the horizon. This made for some great shooting.
I think this last shot is my favorite from the evening:
Enjoy!
