Toy Soldiers

I usually don't plan my images, preferring instead the joy of on the spot discovery. However, I had visited this place a couple of times before and realizing its orientation, thought it might make a rather compelling image with the rising moon.

I left my house in early afternoon, expecting  rather leisurely drive, but after an hour, or so, noticed the sun at a ridiculously low angle. I had forgotten about the time change. I quickly pulled over to check both my eta and the time of sunset. As luck would have it, I would arrived half an hour before sunset but that left little to no time for scouting a subject. 

But, I actually did not arrive until just after sunset with the moon already over the horizon. Time was ticking and Chuck was panicking.  I knew the general area I wanted to photograph, drove straight there, parked, and quickly set up in front of the first interesting composition I saw.

The crosses were orderly, like a row of young army recruits. As anyone who has studied my work knows, I like order. But I also like to explore exceptions to formal order. Three crosses stood out from the rest: one leaning, one with a missing arm, and one laying on its side. I carefully composed so that all three stood out. I wanted them to be strong elements and not overlap or be hidden. In truth, there is a another cross without arms so it looks like a stick, but it was a bit too static to offer anything as important as the others, though I did keep it in the composition.

As anyone who has photographed a rising moon knows, it starts out dim and gradually gets brighter as it rises. This is due to the fact that, at a shallow angle (just above the horizon) the light has to travel through a lot more atmosphere than it does as it gets higher. And, since getting detail in the moon was vital, I had to shoot while it was still reasonably dim (at least compared to the foreground). I exposed for the moon (ETTR would have been disastrous here) let the shadows do what shadows do, and hoped my editing skills would be enough. to bring out the subjects.

There is no Photoshop trickery here, no AI. Just some of burning and dodging, some selective clarity (great for adding brightness to the crosses), and a helluva lot of good fortune. Had I been delayed just five minutes, I would have come home empty-handed. 

Now, did I worry about this image getting compared to Ansel's Moonrise? Of course. They both have crosses and a moon, so the connection only makes sense. But, and this is important, I think the the feeling between the two images is different. Besides, I am often compared to Ansel. Just last week I over heard another photographer say just loud enough for me to hear "Man, that Chuck sure ain't no Ansel."

No, I am not.