capturing the moment

Have you ever intended to photograph one subject and instead captured something entirely different?

That’s what happened to me last evening. I wanted to shoot the full super moon rising over the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. As soon as I left home, I could see there might be a problem. A large rain cloud hovered over the park, right where the moon was calculated to appear.

Hoping the cloud might move on or dissipate, I kept driving. I am so glad I did.

A full moon always rises as the sun sets. In the Shenandoah Valley, the sun sinks below the Allegheny Mountains that mark Virginia/West Virginia state lines to the west. It rises over the Blue Ridge Mountains to the east.

As I drove east, the last of the day’s sun rays illuminated the clouds over the national park. The closer I got, the more the clouds transitioned from white to peach to orange.

I arrived at my photo destination in time to capture the moment’s beauty. For me, this easily made up for missing the moonrise.

Laundered rainbow

I shot this photo rather quickly. I was on an errand when these colors caught my eye. I stopped my vehicle, and took the photo out the window, zooming in between several trees.

Though mostly pastel, the colors appeared bright hanging on the laundry line in the late evening sun. It wasn’t until I downloaded the picture to my computer that I realized the personal aspect of the colors. They told a story all their own about the style preferences of the woman or women in this Amish family.

“Laundered rainbow” is my Photo of the Week.

Two beauties

I felt fortunate to capture this moment between our daughter-in-law and our granddaughter. They were reviewing “spy pictures,” as the four-year-old referred to them, of Uncle Nathan, our son. Apparently, Maren convinced her aunt to use her cell phone to photograph our son and her two brothers building a Lego toy. The focused concentration on the polka dotted iPhone, coupled with their relaxed poses, really made this photo pop. The backlit blond hair didn’t hurt either.

“Two beauties” is the Photo of the Week.