Full Moon Rising

The rising (and setting) full moon is one of the most difficult night photography subjects to capture. The reason is that the bright surface of the moon is illuminated by full, direct sunlight, while your twilight foreground is generally much, much darker. It can easily be impossible to capture both the moon and your foreground in a single exposure.

Here’s a simple trick to get you started: Choose either (or both) the evening of the day before the day of the full moon OR the morning of the day after the full moon. You will often find that on these two days, the full moon is close to the horizon for just a few moments during twilight when it has roughly the same brightness as the foreground.

Here’s an example of how this works.

Best of luck!