It was a full moon night. Someone shared on Facebook that we will be able to see this kind of full moon again only in next 30 years. I had many attempts to get good picture of reddish full moon but I didn't make it until now. I thought it would be great to capture some pics.
I left my apartment around 6pm (I later realized that it was late) to the nearest light rail station on Central avenue since I don't have a car. I had 70-200 on my camera and I used an AR app called "Lumos" to chase where the moon is. I hopped off at every station to check good background to capture the moon. After taking for a few stations, I left light rail and started walking as I thought I would get some good background in Phoenix downtown with many buildings. I was wrong. The moon was hiding behind the skyscrapers of Phoenix.
I waited for another train and kept hunting the moon. Finally, I found the full moon quite clearly but there were some cables in the foreground but the good thing was that there were many planes taking off since it is close to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport so I expected that at least one airplane will be flying through the shape of moon. Again, I realized I was wrong after waited for 45 minutes. None of the airplanes flew through it.
If I could get here earlier, I would get bigger photo of the full moon and more dramatic background. But now, it was quite above my eye-level which makes me unhappy. I hopped on to another light rail and departed to Tempe where hopefully I could get better photos of this moment.
It was an unlucky day. I still didn't have the clear visibility and good background.
Finally, I saw a construction site in downtown Tempe where I could see the clear vision of the full moon in the background. I struggled with the distance since the moon was already high up above my eye-level.
I still couldn't be happy with what I got. But I had to give up since the moon was already far away from the earth and I wouldn't be able to get the good full moon picture with my 200mm lens. I ended up with bad result after spending around three hours on the road. I am sure that I could get better photo if I could make to highway and if I have a car. Who cares about all these excuses?
We have a proverb in Burmese that says "If you didn't get any fish when you go for fishing, you go back home after at least taking bath." It means you can at least take bath in the river even if you don't get a single fish when you're out for fishing. I saw an interesting character on the corner of a street.
A homeless man with a small puppy wearing a silvery thing that was made from the metal things that you open the lids of soda cans. The ambient light from a bar in front makes his face more interesting. I said hello and asked permission from him to allow me to take his portraits. I was lucky.
I first had to mingle a little bit with his puppy since he was barking at me too much. I asked his name while petting his puppy. He said I can call him "Chicago" and he also mentioned the name of his puppy which I forgot stupidly.
He perfectly stayed without looking at me when I was taking pictures. When I showed interest on the silvery thing that he wore on his neck, he took out another one from his bag which he put on the ground beside him. And told me that he likes to make more of these.
I offered him to eat something then he honestly said he wanted to have a double bacon cheese burger from the Five Guys which opened just across the street. After spending around 15 minutes with him, I called it a day and left Tempe back to my apartment.
Although I didn't get the perfect photo of what I wanted, I was quite happy with what I got already and I hope these pictures would reflect the word "The Moment".
Aung Naing Soe