Behind the Digital LensMusings of an Amateur Photographer

13th Nov, 2016 How to Photograph the November 2016 Supermoon

The moon.  It hovers above us, hanging out there in space, and mostly goes unnoticed by us until something spectacular happens and we just happen to be in the right place at the right time and then we’re pretty amazed at the object that helps control our tides and keeps the earth in alignment.  And there it is.  Grab your smartphone and take a photo, or two or three.

In the past I have taken photos of the moon, but not of a Supermoon.  Just plain old full moons on the rise.  Like most people, I don’t think about the moon that much.  So, this month, I thought I would make an attempt.  I finally bought a tripod because hand holding a camera while photographing the moon does not always produce a good photo; but I just needed one, anyway.  Since I have never done this before, I can’t guarantee my results will be great, but unless I try, I will never know.

One of the first things I need to do is to find out from which direction the moon will be rising.  For most people this seems simple, but since moving to Dallas 20 years ago I seem to have become directionally challenged.  Oh, I can tell if I’m driving North, South, East, and West – somewhat – but a lot of the time I rely on GPS on my phone.  And I do know about how to tell my direction depending on which side of me the sun is, but standing right outside my door if you tell me to face North, that becomes a problem.  Hence, figuring out where moon rise will be located.  Looking this up online I see that it will be rising in the East-NorthEast at 5:13 PM 11/13/2016 and East-NorthEast at 6:02 PM 11/14/2016.  That shouldn’t be too hard to find.

And then, I need to scout out the best place to take photos.  I need a place that is fairly open, somewhat dark, but with some kind of a landmark, be it buildings, trees, people….some identifiable object besides a blank horizon.  This gives perspective to the size of the moon, as well as making the photo visually appealing.  So, I’ll see what I can come up with.  Of course, the more buildings with lights, the nicer looking the photo, but I prefer open spaces.

I found a good article on photographing the Supermoon at Space.com; Bill Ingalls, a NASA photographer shares some of his tips for taking good photos of this moon.

So, good luck with your moon shots!