I had planned to go hiking this morning in the Superstition Mountains, a short distance from my Apache Junction home. As I was putting my gear in my truck, I glanced up and saw clouds, lots of clouds and up there trying to make its presence known was the remnants of this month’s full moon.

The time was 06:30 so the sun was still below the horizon, but it was already casting a slight amount of color into the clouds making them look surreal as they swiftly drifted across the sky. The moon was very bright and as it found an opening, it shown through with enough intensity to cast shadows on the ground.

I knew that I was delaying the start of my hike, but I just had to get some photos of that awesome moon and the clouds surrounding it. It didn’t take long, and I had my 300mm telephoto attached to the camera and the pair sitting snuggly on my tripod.

After a couple of test shots, I had a setup working where I was able to stop the motion of the clouds, while the manual focus was fine-tuned to show detail in the surface of the moon, and I was shooting with Spot Metering. ISO was adjusted to 1,000 and the shutter speed came out to 0.2seconds with an aperture of f/8 on my Canon EOS M6 mark ll.

After getting some ‘keepers’, I was off to get my hike going and by the time I reached the trailhead, the clouds had already dissipated. Like the old saying goes, “right place, right time”.

Jack Olson’s “Images in the Wilderness” https://www.facebook.com/Images.in.the.Wilderness