[ Lost in the Landscape ]

garden in moonlight

Last night the moon was nearly full and the gar­den glowed brightly in its light. The images below are all long expo­sures, from sev­eral to thirty sec­onds, so a tri­pod was essential.

Moon, con­trail, clouds…

Yucca in moon­light: The flow­ers are white, but light from the nearby street­light made them appear orange.

Water lilies reflect­ing the moon, over black water, with bent papyrus stems in the fore­ground… This is my favorite pic­ture from last night.

Papyrus and falling water…

The cat, explor­ing on the roof…

A view towards the water from the deck…

…and finally, a shot of the gar­den. In long expo­sures like this one, the gar­den almost looks as if it’s being lit by the sun. But the odd, the­atri­cal col­ors from the lights in the houses give it a color cast that makes you look twice. Day or night?

Long dig­i­tal expo­sures always have a degree of noise, the grainy pris­matic fuzz that pol­lutes the darker parts of the images. (It’s par­tic­u­larly obnox­ious in the cat image above.) Pro­grams like Noise Ninja can do won­ders with reduc­ing the noise and mak­ing the images look more nat­ural. But I think they’re fine for shar­ing on the web.

December 12 2008 05:46 am | Categories: gardening • my garden • photography | Tags: cats • moon • night photography • Scooter • time exposures

8 Responses to “garden in moonlight”

1. joey on 12 Dec 2008 at 7:19 am #

   Did you know this is the biggest and bright­est full moon of 2008? Lovely evening photos …

2. lostlandscape on 12 Dec 2008 at 7:43 am #

   Cool–No won­der things felt so intensely bright!

3. kanak on 12 Dec 2008 at 8:48 am #

   Very beau­ti­ful images. The first pic­ture is awesome!

4. lostlandscape on 12 Dec 2008 at 9:58 am #

   Thanks, Kanak!

5. Philip on 12 Dec 2008 at 1:45 pm #

   I love your gar­den noc­turns. You have cap­tured a won­der­ful feel­ing, with the cat on the prowl, and the illu­mi­nated yucca.
   Best regards,
   Philip

6. lostlandscape on 12 Dec 2008 at 4:08 pm #

   Thank you for your com­ments and for stop­ping by, Philip. Tonight’s the offi­cial full moon, but with clouds on the way, I’ll have to set­tle for full enough.
   James

7. Philip on 12 Dec 2008 at 7:43 pm #

   Yes! The full moon has not emerged yet over the house yet. This morn­ing around 5:00 AM I enjoyed it as it was set­ting in the west.
   Best,
   Philip

8. lostlandscape on 13 Dec 2008 at 10:20 pm #

   Philip, I’m jeal­ous! I thought the set­ting moon would be spec­tac­u­lar. We had a prob­lem with the morn­ing clouds obscur­ing any view of the moon. That weather thing just doesn’t coop­er­ate all the time…
   J

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