Fly me to the Moon
Fly me to the Moon
Fly me to the Moon is perhaps the most arsiest photo I have ever taken.
For years I’ve had a fascination with the moon, but also for aircraft, and more particularly, commercial aircraft. Nerdy I know, but hey we all have our weakness. I’ve collected many images of aircraft and the moon over the period of my photographic life, but rarely both in the same frame.
In Brian De Palma’s The Bonfire of the Vanities, there is a 10 second shot of a Concord landing at JFK with the sun setting and the Empire State Building in the background. He hired the Concord from Air France for $80,000 to get that shot. I didn’t quite have that luxury.
I live in Sydney and have a balcony pretty much facing due east. I see the sun rise every morning and the moon rise every night. I have thousands of these images and on Tuesday 27th April 2021, a full moon, I was out on said balcony happily clicking for more to add to my thousand images.
The moon had just cleared the ridge line across the river and the fruits bats begun their nightly mass migration south for whatever bats do at night. So of course I began positioning myself to capture one or two crossing the face of the now rising moon. Got some good images - not like the Batman signal or anything - but pretty good nonetheless.
Aircraft departures out of Sydney that night where leaving south on runway 16R - yes I know nerdy - and coming into my vision above the ridge line at a height above the still rising moon.
I waited. And hoped. I actually began shaking. I checked my settings in anticipation. Manual focus locked. 300mm. ISO 200. f6.3. Shutter 1/200. And I waited some more.
Holding the camera framed to the moon, I removed my eye from the viewfinder and saw an aircraft on an ascent pretty much guaranteed to bisect the moon. I dug my elbows into my waist for stability, tried to stop shaking, then framed the shot. I was committed and had no peripheral vision other than the 1.45 inch frame I could see through my camera viewfinder.
I kept waiting and sure enough, JQ725 headed for Hobart passed across the face of the full moon! I fired off 7 frames in the one second it took to transit the surface then literally jumped for joy out on the balcony in celebration.
It’s funny, this was an image I have always wanted to capture. And I achieved it from nothing. I love the silhouette of the aircraft and the exhaust trail blurring some detail of the moon. It was taken on an old Nikon 70-300mm zoom (not the best piece of glass) fully extended to 300mm way before I owned the Moonbazooka. Whilst very happy with the photo I still go out religiously on clear nights every month trying to replicate the image with a focal length of 600mm and therefore twice the quality.
I haven’t managed that yet but the photographic Gods have already given me one of my most proudest captures ever.
300mm. f/6.3. 1/200sec ISO 200.