Last night the kids were playing with sparklers, the stars were out and the moon was slim, so it made for some good pictures of the palm tree in our yard and the stars behind it. Each image is available on my website www.CarsonMatthewsPhotography.com. The change in ISO from 3200 to 800 made a big impact on what is visible in each picture.
Over the past few days I have taken several photographs of the moon as it made it’s way towards tonight’s SuperMoon status. We were traveling over the weekend in Palm Beach, Florida giving me the opportunity to get a great shot of the moon in a dark sky over the ocean. The photo below was taken Saturday night.
Nikon D800, 70-200mm, ISO 400 1/200 sec @ f/8
This next photograph was taken last night with my iPhone over the Publix back in Atlanta at the Chastain Square Shopping Center. “Don’t forget to dot the ‘b'”. Based on the number of likes it got, I’m not sure many people realized it was the moon above the ‘b’ in Publix.
iPhone
This morning the Sun was not going to be out-shined by the Moon, so it put on it’s own show at sunrise thanks to the haze of smoke covering Atlanta right now due to wildfires in the North Georgia Mountains and the North Carolina Mountains. Here is a picture of the sun this morning as it rose. Typically you wouldn’t be able to get a clear shot like this without glare.
Nikon D800, 28-300mm, ISO 250 1/8000 sec @ f/8
Finally this evening the true SuperMoon came along. The day was full of haze, blue skies muffled and gray as the wildfire smoke moved across Atlanta. This evening was no different and I almost abandoned the photo trek all together. Convinced by my friend Lily to try it anyway I headed to Tower Place in Buckhead to see if I could get a good shot with a building in the foreground. It wasn’t happening, at least when I needed it to. Last night it seemed to rise earlier, and tonight I just didn’t have as much time. After walking around for 45 minutes with no moon, I headed back to the car (after being chased down Peachtree Road by a lunatic screaming “come here bitch-ass” at me). I drove closer to Lenox Mall and decided to check out the roof top parking at Pirch above Dick’s Sporting Goods. While it wasn’t a great spot, it did turn out a couple of pictures of a ghostly blood orange moon rising above the trees looking east.
Nikon D800, 70-200mm – ISO 5000 1/13 sec @ f/5.6
It was clearly affected by the haze, and much darker than usual, so I proceeded to head back to Chastain Park to see if I could grab one more picture on the way home. I got several pictures of the SuperMoon as it continued to rise over Chastain Park.
Once I got home I snapped a couple more from the front porch, probably the clearest shots of the night.
This past Sunday night we were in Sea Island and the sky was so much brighter than what we typically see in Atlanta.  I went out that night with my tripod and got some shots of the moon and stars.  Here are two of my favorites:
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