In life we try to put ourselves in the right place at the right time. For photography, that’s even more important because if you’re late, you’ll miss the moment. But you also need to consider time of day and weather, and occasionally, unique celestial events. That’s the position I found myself in during the recent trip I led to Acadia National Park in Maine.
When planning a trip, there are lots of things to consider aside from simply location. How hard will it be for the clients to get there from other parts of the country? What kind of accommodations are available, and what about places to eat? Are there enough good locations to fill four days of photography (the normal length of my U.S. trips)? Can those locations be visited without spending too much time driving? And while I always try to include some night photography, the trip is rarely built around the moon’s activity. For the Acadia trip, I knew we’d have a Super Moon, but wanted to see how the weather was before making any plans around it. On the day before the Super Moon, the weather forecast was looking good, and there would be an added bonus that night – a comet might be visible! Time to adjust the schedule.
The original plan for that day was to spend the afternoon at Jordan Pond, followed by a night shoot there. However, Jordan Pond is surrounded by small mountains, which would be blocking the moonrise and lessen the odds of seeing the comet. The day after, though, we were scheduled to be at Schoodic Point. Since the point extends south into the Atlantic Ocean, we’d have open views both east (for the Super Moon rising), as well as west (for sunset and the comet). So I swapped the afternoon/evening plans for those two days. Even better, moonrise was at 5:43 p.m., followed a minute later, at 5:44 p.m., with sunset. And aside from the moon being partially blocked by thin clouds as it rose, the plan couldn’t have worked out any better. Here are some of those photos:
We had a beautiful evening, plus everyone came away with a rare comet photo. One of the things I love about leading these small-group workshops is that I can change our plans on short notice. And being able to change the plan can give us better odds of making unique pictures. Because, of course, in photography, timing is everything!
(I’ll probably repeat this trip to Acadia, in 2026 if not 2025. If that interests you, drop me a note. And if you’d like to see more photos from the trip, check out the gallery here.)
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Beautiful photos! Great story!