The Last Night

The final night of our vacation at the beach in Florida found all of us standing on the porch, our arms resting on the railing, waiting for the moon to rise over the watery horizon in the distance. Rather than sending the kids to bed on time, the adults let everyone stay up a bit longer, and then just a bit more, in order to see the full moon rise from the waters like Ares blazing his chariot across the daytime sky, though in place of a celestial furnace we beheld the moon, a dull hunk of rock lit to a bright flame by the same searing sun. The sky was dark, the waters warm, and the wind whispered in our ears when off in the distance the faintest sliver of light peeked out from the sea. The deep red light shone dimly at first, then grew to a bright brilliance on the nearly cloudless night as my wife and I, along with our kids, our friends, and their kids, watched the scene unfold before our eyes.

All this may sound just a tad melodramatic, but that really is how it felt to be there at the seashore watching the full moon rise on the last night of our vacation. It was not something I could recall having viewed at any other time in my life, and I don’t expect to have the opportunity to experience something like this for quite some time again. As we watched the moon climb higher in the sky our friends’ son asked if I might try to capture the moment with my camera. I hesitated, knowing that no photograph could hop to contain the sheer scale and wonder of what we were witnessing, but I told him I would at least be willing to try. I got my Fuji 100F and travel tripod, found a vantage point on the deck, set everything up, and took a picture: F/9, ISO 800, 26 seconds. Then another, and then a third. The child was grateful that I was willing to oblige; away went my camera, and we all returned to watch the moon rise just a bit more. And then just a bit more…

When I loaded the RAW file in Lightroom several days later, what I saw didn’t exactly knock my socks off.

While this was a bit more reflective of the reality of the scene, it in no way captured the essence of the experience. It didn’t even connect the image to a memory, since it hardly shows anything at all. I spent a while tweaking the RAW file–developing the film, one might say, in order to produce an image that would transport me, my wife, our friends, or any of our kids back to that moment in time on our last night at the beach. I even went to far at to use Lightroom’s AI Denoise feature to clean things up even more than I normally would, and the result is what you see at the top of this week’s post. It wasn’t a shot I planned or even wanted to take, but it ended up being one of my favorites from the whole trip.

Here’s to life, to family, to friends, and to taking chances :)