Leon Turnbull Photography

I went hiking after work last night down to Folsom Lake. Not for the sunset. I am trying to lose some more weight, and I figure I need to do more than just one hike per week (on Saturday). It is very difficult to do any sort of exercise after work during the week, since I get home so late. But I am going to try to start doing something at least a few days a week. Going down to Folsom Lake at the old Salmon Falls bridge is an easy but good little hike.

I did take my camera with me (and I plan to keep doing this now, of course!). The sunset initially looked like it would be a wash, nothing at all. There were a lot of thick clouds in the sky. I almost left my tripod in the car. I arrived down at the bridge, which is usually under water, but with the lake being low right now, it is showing. It was sunset time. I did not take my camera out of the bag. I waited. The sky started getting redder. Camera is still in bag. And redder. Still watching. And redder. Now I’m getting intrigued. And redder. Out pops the camera. It was well after sunset by this time, but I quickly setup and took a couple shots. I was definitely not expecting such a sunset, but it was pretty darn sweet. Thanks, Lord.

Well here is my take on this morning’s lunar eclipse. It is not great.

I thought I would try to do a couple things this morning, shoot two birds with one stone, so to speak. The first of these was to get up super early to shoot the eclipse. The second was to go waterfallin’ up in the Sierra. I got up at a little before 5AM, and made my way down to the American River and Folsom Bridge, a cup of coffee in my hand to help warm me up in the cold. I knew the moon would be in this position in the morning from checking The Photographer’s Ephemeris, and the day before I had taken my daughter down here to scout out a possible shooting location. I did not see those power lines! It was too dark in the morning to see them, and when I had scouted with my daughter I did not see them either (as we did not get down here until almost dark). So I did not see that they were in the shot until afterwards. I was bummed about it, as the moon is kinda right in the middle of them, but I figured it would be too hard to clone them out, so I just left them in there. Other than that though, I really like the shot. It turned out much better than I expected.

Anyway, I figure I’m much better at photographing waterfalls than moons, so after the eclipse I headed up I-80, and I got to a pretty cool spot as well. That pic will be coming up next.