Moonlit barn, 5:00 a.m.

Inspired by photographers like Bob and Tobey, I’ve been challenging myself to get out at night and photograph by the light of the moon. There’s something about being barely able to see to compose the shot, exposing the frame for five to ten minutes or more and then trusting the camera to capture what is only visible in your mind’s eye.

As I’ve said, I had been unable to get out in the evenings this past week to catch the moonlight at full strength. So with the weekend here, I got up at 4:30 yesterday morning, packed my camera gear, lots of hot coffee (the wind chill has been near zero degrees at night the past few days) and with my wife to keep me company (what a trouper), set off into the countryside near my home in Elgin, Illinois to see what I could find in the moon- and starlight.

What I found was a moon only 75 percent of full, so longer exposures than normal were needed. This barn was taken at about six minutes exposure (f8 and 400 ISO film). The light was fine for capturing objects on the ground and moving clouds in the sky, but I also wanted to capture some star trails – the moonlight was a little too strong to catch long trails without overexposing foreground objects. I did catch a few but would have liked to have gotten longer trails. There’s a balance somewhere – I’ll keep trying until I find it.

More early morning night shots to come. Or is that late night morning shots?

Click on picture to enlarge. Photograph © 2006 James Jordan.