moonrise kingdom

When we moved to my barn four years ago (five years ago?! gosh this is the fifth year!) I started riding four days a week, and fairly often in the evenings.  Davis gets these absolutely magnificent harvest moons in the Fall, that are just monstrous and orange and amazing, and that Hallowe’en I caught one while driving home with a car full of teenagers.  It was badass.

Since then, I’ve had this photography project in mind.  A couple of times a year, right as the moon is full, it rises right when the sun is setting.  Our arena is situated perfectly to capture both of these moments — just enough light from the setting sun to take pictures, with a full moon rising in the background.  However, this happens literally six to nine days a year, because otherwise there’s too much light from the sun to properly see the moon, or the moon rises after it’s too dark.

So you can imagine that when I was driving home two nights ago and saw the full moon rising in the just-barely-dark I had to give it a go.  I had one of the dressage lessons moved to the outdoor to try to get these moments.

Only, the moon rises a lot slower than I thought.  And when it’s hazy and cloudy like it often is in the central valley, you don’t get to see the moon until it’s about 9 degrees into the sky.  So it was a bit too dark to get exactly the effect I wanted, but at least I tried.

We’ll try again next month, this time with more time before the sun goes down!