A day before the October Full Moon 2021, widely known as the ‘Lakhi/ Lakshmi Purnima’ according to the Hindu mythology and as ‘Hunter’s Moon’ according to American Folklore. I was shooting some evening scapes near Thiksey village in Ladakh along with a few friends. The initial plan was to go back to that same place the following evening to shoot some star trails. On our way back, we realized that the next day would be a Full moon. Our excitement knew no bounds. We instantly planned a Time-lapse of the Moonrise, but then the plan kept on changing. The next day we couldn’t get a cab, and also, as one of our friends was leaving Leh the following day, we were made to stay back in town. The last option that we had on our hands was the roof of our place HappyDrifters in Leh.
The shot was planned, and we set up our tripods on the roof. It was my first ever attempt at ‘Twilight Blending’. The twilight shot was perfect, or should I say, near-perfect until we realized that the composition we had set was not perhaps the best one. Right away we changed and were ready with the new composition so that we can have the moon within our frame for the longest period of time. The waiting time was a little longer than we had anticipated since we had moved to the west of previous day's location. A twilight shot was just taken in time for the foreground and then the full moon rose to its full glory.
Game, Set, Match? Wait for a while maybe! I was curious to see the end result knowing that we had planned a Time-lapse and I wished to convert a few shots to a Moonrise shot. I finally decided to work on them, only to realize that there was some frame movement in between the ‘Twilight Shot’ and the moon shots due to the strong Ladakh wind and the heavy 100-400 lens mounted on the tripod. Luckily, there were a lot of blank shots of the foreground before it got dark, and I could retrieve the details of one of them (thankfully I was at ISO 100 throughout) and blend it with the moonrise images.
Here is a compilation of Images chosen from different frame sequences to see the different intervals of the moonrise. Hopefully, I’ll get to shoot similar shots in the coming days again, but the learnings and the whole experience of waiting on the roof at subzero temperature were incredible. Do let me know, how you like it.
EXIF:
Canon 5D Mark IV + Canon EF 100 - 400mm 4-5.6L Lens at 100mm
Foreground: 1/30, f/11, ISO 100
Moon: 1/80, f/11, ISO 100
