MOONLIGHT IN THE BISTI

I try to plan my trips to the badlands to be during the full moon for several reasons: You can work the last light and still walk back to camp in the moonlight. You can also photograph the full moon, and photograph by the light of the moon.

As an example, The picture above was taken 20 minutes after sunset when the full moon was rising. If you look carefully you can see light coming from both the left and the right sides. The star trails are also another clue that this is night-time picture, and at such low light levels it took a full ten minutes to expose on film. For more information on exposure times during night photography see my lightning picture gallery.