After being reminded of my moonlit childhood dreams, I was determined to learn more about the massive rock floating over our heads. Reminiscent of my bedside lunar phase chart, I was again reminded how much the moon varied each evening. This constant variation each night presented a difficulty in my pursuit of capturing the moon and bringing it closer to home.
I knew that to capture the full moon in the way I envisioned it, I would need to practice. A lot. Thankfully, the full moon happens each month, so I knew I would have more than one opportunity to finesse my skill of capture.
Each night I watched the moon pass through the night sky, I appreciated more and more how drastically it changed on a day-to-day basis. Each phase of the moon had a slightly different feeling, moving from the new moon to the full. The contrast between the movement of the moon and the planets and Milky Way was mind blowing to me. It was refreshing to have such different compositions each evening, giving me a shift in perspective of how I perceived the astrological events visible from Earth. This movement also added a difficulty in planning my compositions.
The moon moves as much as 13 degrees each evening, relatively shifting where it rises and sets. I used this movement as an opportunity to practice capturing its various phases to improve my skills, shooting the moon from my balcony. Each night I looked at the moon moving through the sky and watched its path, waiting for inspiration to capture it. With the CN Tower skyline in view from my home, I planned to capture the moon as it set through gaps between buildings.
Watching the moon night after night, I was confused at the lack of colour. I had seen pictures of the moon in a whole array of colours. I wanted to find the colour of the moon, like the moons of my dreams.
It was at this time, in the summer of 2021, that there were horrible forest fires across much of Canada. For days on end, there was a smoky haze to the sky, distorting the way light passed through the atmosphere. On one of these nights, I looked up at the moon to find it a deep orange colour. The smoke had ironically added clarity to my understanding of what it was I was dreaming of. I needed to capture the moon through the Earth’s atmosphere, near the horizon.
