From the Archives: Eclipse

You may remember the lunar eclipse in September 2015. I went out to photograph that event, at a vantage point along a dirt road overlooking the Palouse River canyon and surrounding hills. The image quality isn't perfect, and neither are the compositions; for that reason, I never posted my pictures at the time. On revisiting them, however, I think it might be worth it to play with them in Lightroom and see how I can get them to look. It will take some sensitive noise reduction, dust spot removal (I hadn't cleaned my image sensor yet), and lighting/contrast work.

It's easy for me to make mistaken assessments of the quality of my images, in either direction. In the case of images I don't like, I can get so distracted by the difference from the ideal I had in mind that I end up not wanting to share or use the product, even though it might still be passable. On the other hand, sometimes I think an image is better than it actually is - I am too proud of the fact that I found a given subject or hiked a certain trail in the first place, or I am otherwise distracted by some narrative dimension of the subject, to notice that the image isn't really that great and shouldn't see the light of day.

First, a view of the eclipse itself:

Next, the moon just after rising, at an earlier stage of the eclipse. It's closer to the horizon than I'd like, compositionally speaking, but the sky color was best at this moment.

Finally, a view of the Palouse River canyon from before the moon rose.

Despite my frustrations, I still had a great time while I was out. There's nothing quite like being outside to watch (and hear - crickets!) night fall in a remote place. I wasn't in the wilderness per se; there were cultivated fields immediately at my back. But it was still a more remote part of the Palouse, and there wasn't a soul anywhere near.

Anyway, I'll be working on processing these. Stay tuned.