“let’s keep things nice and cozy”
Nice subtitle from Wordpress for this weeks Weekly Photo Challenge for the word Warmth, so I took it literally, and what better way of showing something cosy than with the family festive Christmas Tree in the Milner household, all glowing by candlelight on a cold winters night.
Moon Photography is quite a passion of mine, as anyone who follows this blog, my Twitter or Instagram feed will know quite well, to the extent it’s quite a fetish. For my one and only Moon blog of 2014 I thought I’d share my favourite shots of 2014, but this wasn’t an easy task to whittle down them down from 25 to 12, the last 18 where all worthy participants of this post, but I’ve ruthlessly got my final selection ready… Enjoy
No:1 | Double Crescent
The first visible moon of 2014 was quite a special one, a Double Crescent, as you see Venus in the lower right also in crescent, and a shot that was quickly sinking into the horizon and clouds.
No:2 | Triple Conjunction
There was a lot of Twitter chatter about this conjunction of the Moon with Venus and Mercury, and for this pre-dawn occurrence, I think I set off at 4:00 to set up in my favourite dark sky field, although I wasn’t alone in this pitch black field that morning, it was full of cows and their steaming leftovers. Luckily my head torch seemed to keep them away from me thankfully, although my phone going off at about 5:00 did cause a stir amongst them, it was ❤️Wifey panicking that I wasn’t laid beside her in bed, and who seemed quite bemused that I was in a Cows field in the dark. The conjunction didn’t disappoint when it appeared.
No:3 | Eye of the Moon
No:4 | Saturn Conjunction
The Saturn Conjunction was captured whilst sat a beach bar in Spain listening to some live music, I had a pocket tripod perched on the table to get this, although there is some slight movement in the shot.
No:5 | EarthShine Moon
Generally a dawn or dusk shot, and I’ve taken quite a few, but I love the colours this one captured.
No:6 | Moon Jet
No:7 | Nebula Moon
I loved how this almost looked like the Rose Nebula as the colours vignette through clouds.
No:8 | Early Bird Moon
The early bird catches the moon, timing is everything for this kind of shot, or pure fluke if you’re me 🙂
No:9 | Storm Moon
The moon was quite absent from the night sky the weeks prior to getting this shot, which summed up the mood of the prior storms.
No:10 | Fire Moon
A tyre dump was on fire the east of Leeds, it provided quite an atmospheric backdrop the that nights full moon.
No:11 | Hunters Moon
The Hunters Moon that I captured on the 8th of October was named by the Native Americans for obvious reasons. The leaves are falling from trees, the deer is looking plump, and it’s time to begin storing up meat for the long winter ahead. Because the fields were traditionally harvested in late September or early October, hunters could easily see fox and other animals that came out to grace on the fallen grains. It’s also know as the Harvest Moon and historically accorded with the special honour associated as the full moon nearest the autumnal equinox, and marking the start of the feast day of Harvest Festival, traditionally held on or near the Sunday of the Harvest Moon.
No:12 | Mountain Moon
And finally, one my photography bucket list shots to capture was a full moon rising over a mountain, so with a bit of planning I caught the final Supermoon rising over the mountains over Mazarrón Bay in Southern Spain.
A little video to end with of No:4 | Moon Jet
The Tour de France came to Leeds this year (or Tour de Yorkshire as we called it) and as a city, we bathed the town in Yellow, and for me, one the most memorably yellow parts of Leeds was the hand knitted jumpers added to The Nymphs sculptures in City Square by Alfred Drury, a figure prominent in the New Sculpture movement. So it seems quite apt that I add this to the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge for the word Yellow
This week, The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge wanted us to share our photos of twinkling light, and want a great word ‘Twinkle‘ is for a mid December photo challenge. But they did say don’t go for the cliché Christmas shots, but instead how the light can create that twinkle, even in nighttime photography, and capture the sparkle of stars…which I did.
As they said in the brief…
“Where there is light, there will be a twinkle.”
Twinkling lights on the shopping centre roof and twinkling ice on a cold morning car.
Heavenly twinkles on an Easter Sunday in the Church of St James in Boroughbridge, Yorkshire
Twinkling Moon Star on our garden Christmas Tree, which was all about the timing.
This blog is really simple…I’ll let the typography and hand-lettering I’ve created do the talking… ♥Carl
Geek Carl 