Night On The Lake

I have driven by this small lake for years but never took the time to stop and photograph it.

I was driving home one evening and wasn’t in any hurry so I decided to stop and set up my camera and tripod to see what I could capture. It was a cool September evening but it was clear with calm water conditions which I figured could produce some nice reflections.

The first photo was taken shortly after sunset and was a 30 second exposure that produce a beautiful blue tone to it.

The second photo was taken about 25 minutes later or so when it was much darker. The exposure lasted almost 5 minutes which allowed me to pick up the movement of an early star in the sky and the lights of passing traffic on the road to the right.

Full Moon Reflection

I have been craving trying a good honest effort to photograph a full moon with the  moonlight reflecting off the water but could never get it right.

The problem has always been exposure. The moon is always too bright to allow for the proper exposure of the light reflecting off the water. The only way to get around this problem was to combine two separate photos into one.

I photographed the moon at one exposure setting and then took a separate photograph of the moonlight on the water. I combined the two photos to create this final product.

The second photo was taken two days earlier when the moon wasn’t quite as full and with it further in the sky but the process was the same.