PHOTOS: Wyoming Photographer Captures Incredible Pictures of October Blood Moon
Sunday gave witness to the famed October 'Blood Moon,' and anybody with a camera (or, even, a camera phone) tried to nap a few snapshots of the gorgeous sight above them.
More often than not, photos didn't turn out. Unless you're a professional photographer with extremely professional photography equipment, it's very, very hard to capture decent photos of something so far away.
Luckily, Dave Porter is a professional photographer.
Porter took some incredible shots of the blood moon on Sunday and he shared them with K2 Radio News.
Porter says his love for photography came about at a very young age.
"I've been taking photographs avidly since college, when I fixed my dad's hand-me-down 33mm film camera," Porter told K2 Radio News. "Since then, I've switched to digital and have slowly upgraded my gear. I enjoy photography because it's a fun way to experience the outdoors and to try to record specific moments and feelings."
And make no mistake about it, that full moon on Sunday gave us all a lot of feelings.
K2 Radio News previously reported that "The Farmer's Almanac chronicles 'One of the most enduring beliefs is that the full Moon can cause some people to act strangely, thus the common refrain of 'must be a full Moon' when things start to go haywire. This idea even made its way into our language, with words like 'lunacy' and 'lunatic' born from the Latin word 'luna' for 'moon.'"
Read More: October Blood Moon Followed by November Lunar Eclipse
While we don't think Wyoming saw any lunatics or, worse (better?) yet, werewolves, we did see an incredible vision of the Blood Moon throughout the night.
So, naturally, many of us attempted to take out our camera phones to capture a shot. But for some reason, our iPhones just can't seem to catch the beauty that see, and feel, with our own eyes.
"The moon can be extremely easy to photograph and anybody can do it with almost any camera," Porter said. "But, it is difficult to capture it in a night scene the the way your eyes see it in conjunction with the surrounding landscape."
The moon is an incredibly beautiful, complex, visceral subject. That's why it takes a special type of camera or, more accurately, a special type of photographer, to actually capture it in all of its essence.
"To a camera, the moon is extremely bright and it is photographed often with a higher f stop and a short shutter speed to properly expose it," Porter revealed. "But doing so then renders the surrounding sky and landscape as black if it is during the blue hour or at night. So, the only way to get the full scene the way your eyes see it is to take another photo to properly expose the landscape and then combine the two in Photoshop or some other editing software."
That's exactly what he has done, with Sunday's moon and with others. And the results are as breathtaking as the moon itself.
"I try and photograph the moon any time I can, especially if is part of an interesting scene," Porter said. "I've always loved the October or Hunter's Full Moon because it reminds me of Halloween, Fall, and It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We are lucky because Wyoming has some of the most beautiful moons I have ever seen."
Indeed it does and, luckily, we also have talented photographers such as Porter to capture these scenes.
Photos from Sunday's Blood Moon, as well as previous full moon shots, can be seen below.