We were out on Wednesday night for a quickie shoot. My original plan was to explore the yacht harbor and moorings but my timing was off. I was a little late. This area is probably one of the most overly photo’d on the island of Oahu. BUT, it was still a beautiful sunset and moonrise – I never get tired of those. 
This image was made by doing a “vert-o-rama” with a Nikkor 28mm Perspective Control lens: my most favorite lens for serious landscape shooting.
stk Night, Panorama Ala Wai, Harbor, Moon, Night, Rise, Waikiki
So on the night of the lunar eclipse I decided to compose my shot from Waialae Beach Park. I thought Maunalua Bay in the foreground and the eclipsed moon rising (over Koko Head) in the background would have made a rather picturesque composition. Decent idea in theory but in practice, Mother Nature bested me. (She will every time.) Below is the best image of the lunar eclipse that I managed to capture.
As you can see, the bank of clouds, sitting low on the horizon, did most of the “eclipsing”. In hindsight, if I had traveled a little further east; set up my position near Bamboo Ridge, Makapuu, or up on Kamehame Ridge — the lunar eclipse photos might have been more successful. *SIGH* C’est La Vie!
While waiting for: 1) the clouds to clear or 2) the Moon to rise above them, I managed a brief time lapse sequence. Pardon the letter boxing. When I realized the time it would take for the moon to clear the cloud bank, I decided to recomposed the camera for a verticle shot. (Bad for widescreen movies but much better for prints. Deep down, I am still a print maker.) You can see how the cloud bank did the uncanny and followed the Moon’s rising path for practically all of the eclipse. This phenomenon continued well into the night. Only after I had packed in the gear and started driving home (about 8 pm) did the Moon break free of the cloud cover. I could have easily stopped and resumed photographing. But by that time the surrounding sky was way too dark and the full Moon far too bright for the composition that I had envisioned. Next time.
My evening at Waialae Beach was not a total waste though. Wisely, I had arrived on site before the sun was down and captured a couple of nice panoramas while waiting for (the ill fated) moon rise.
No ground breaking photos were captured that night. But I have to admit: simply being there to witness was reward enough. In retrospect it was an incredibly grounding experience. Mother Nature reminded me what was
real and important. The sand between my toes, wind in my hair, clean air in my lungs, sun
and moon beams on my face…I am fortunate to be where I am. I’ll leave you with that thought and this image. (The last one I captured that night.)
stk Night, Panorama, Time Lapse
