Casting shadows in the moonlight

Over the past week, I took a number of photos at night. After realizing I had a pretty sizable collection of them, I decided to put them together to share with you guys. I'd taken some of the night sky, of the road at night, and of what I saw on foot.

It's interesting to see how the moon changed over the course of just a few days. There's a noticeable difference in size from day to day when you really pay attention. It's also interesting to see the different colors the moon looks depending on the time of night and weather conditions.

These first photos were taken while visiting a local park last Thursday. I kept snapping away from about 7:30 to 8:30.

On the ride home from the park I took a few more pictures. I don't think I'd ever taken photos of this dark street before. For a few blocks this area still feels old. Some old farm houses remain and as you can see there aren't any streetlights on this tree-lined road.

Something I like about this photo is the movement of the tree trunks on the right. They're this blur that shows how fast the car was moving.

Here's one of the old farm houses I mentioned. It's fuzzy because of the movement too, but I like how the moon and the lights in the house show up.

Doesn't this look like a spooky eye in the sky?

The moon had a fuller harvest look by the next night.

Would you believe some neighbors had these jack-o-lanterns over their porch lights in late August? I'd first spotted them August 27 as I recall and took these pics on August 31. I want to make note of the date because of the moon photos that follow.

Isn't this cute and welcoming? At first I thought late August was a little early to have these out, even by my standards. But then I saw them lit up at night, and thought it was super cool.

It's not that I'm not happy to see Halloween decorations year round, it's just that when you live in a climate with a very limited warm season, you also want to hang on to summer. So I'm always stuck between "Oooh Halloween!" and "Don't rush summer."

I got a lot of other neighborhood night shots after passing the Halloween house.

Something I like about these is how there's a bit of color but much of the picture recedes into total darkness.

This weeping willow looks a lot more innocent in the daylight. I think it looks like a big swamp monster reaching down at night.

So here's the moon I saw that night! Although it came through in different colors for some reason, this picture is the closest to what I actually saw. It was really that pink. The sky was hazy too. I'm thinking the haze and pinkness had something to do with the fires out west. I heard the fires and smoke were so extreme that they're affecting even what we see in the sky.

The moon looked progressively darker through my camera lens, even though these pictures were all taken in a row. I'm not sure why that would be.

By the end of the walk it was actually looking more like this typical moon color.

Do any of you remember seeing a pink colored moon late last month? It would be interesting to know, especially depending on where you are.

I pieced several of my moon shots together to form this:

I recommend clicking on this to see it larger.

Follow the bouncing moon!

I'm reminded of this old cartoon I watched many times as a kid. At the end you'll see one of those old "follow the bouncing ball" sing-a-long songs. It's "Shine on Harvest Moon" and starts with the moon becoming the bouncing ball. I think it's worth watching the beginning of this old-time "Farm Foolery" cartoon too.

I would very much like to see some night photos from where you guys are. Seeing what other people see when they go out at night could be pretty cool. I'm sure we're all seeing something different and would have a different perspective on what we see.

So if you post a blog with some night pics you've taken or send me some by email, I would enjoy that!