© Brad Mangas
There’s something about getting up before the sunrise and venturing out into nature. I get excited the night before and have a hard time getting to sleep early. I hope I never lose those feelings. Excitement, anticipation, the wondering what morning will have in store for me. And then when I know there’s a full moon on top of that, well heaven help me if I get much sleep at all the night before. I never ever want to outgrow those feelings.
I’m not at liberty to make plans around every full moon or natural event to make sure I’m there to capture it. So when I get the opportunity to be out with a full moon in the sky I consider myself very fortunate. I have learned over the years the best time to capture the full moon and it’s not when it’s rising in the eastern sky. Of course there are exceptions to this like everything. But I have had the best luck capturing it the morning after. As the nights full moon slowly sinks into the western horizon. The colors of the sky just seem way better. And the colors of the winter sunrise and sunsets seem way better. So I was tickled to put it mildly when the winter sky cooperated with me on this particular morning.
There was not a lot of pre-planning put into this particular mornings outing. I knew an area of a local lake I wanted to be at that would offer a good chance to have the full moon in nice view over the lake. Once there, like most times it was up to me to figure out just how to compose and frame it nice. I took a series of shots starting well before this one with the moon higher in a darker sky. As the sky started to lighten up a bit more the silhouette of this tree really drew my attention and allowed me to concentrate on this comp with the moon, frozen lake and tree. The colors of the sky was a bonus (or blessing) given to me for my willingness to be out on a cold winters morning for the sole purpose of enjoying the outdoors.
