May was the Super Moon of the year, when the full moon was going to be the closest to the earth.  We drove up to Topanga Canyon to get a mountaintop view.  We waited at the Top of Topanga, along with many others who were also awaiting the lunar spectacle.  However, the viewpoint faced mostly north, towards the valley.  The church located at the next viewpoint over, was higher up, and stuck out more and had a better eastward vision.  We decided we'd take the chance and find a better location.  As we drove back towards the ocean, we winded down a bit and headed into a neighborhood enclave, but there were too many houses and no space to see east.  We then turned down Viewridge.  At that point, we were a little disoriented, and I was trying to re-establish which direction was which, and we were also frazzled that we would miss the moon over the horizon.  Then, all of a sudden, there it was: directly infront of us, giant, radiant, so obvious and in our face.  We squealed in glee and jumped out of the car, got in the middle of the road, and I rested my camera on the ground since I hadn't brought my tripod.  And these are the images we captured. 

Details

Date: May 5

Location: 8 hours west of GMT

Moon Rose at: 7:37pm

Sun Set at: 5:59pm

Moons of 2012 #4

This month, I almost failed to capture the moon.  I had forgotten my camera when I went over to my sister's place.  On our way out of Deep Dell, we got a glimpse of the moon from the hills, and was able to capture this using an Droid phone.  

Details

Date: April 7 

Location: 8 hours west of GMT

Moon rose at: 8:52pm

Sun set at: 7:19pm

Moons of 2012 - #3

These are taken at the top of the parking structure #4 in Santa Monica. We peeped out of the office to capture the moon.

Details

Date: March 6

Location: 8 hours west of GMT

Moon rose at: 4:30pm

Sun set at: 5:54pm

Handwriting

Today, I struggled to find a functioning pencil, and when I did, I couldn't find a pencil sharpener. I finally remembered where my old Panasonic pencil sharpener was, but the batteries were dead. I considered sharpening it with a knife, per BF's suggestion. Luckily, I found a mechanical pencil instead! As I started to write notes on a scratch pad, I became cognizant of my own handwriting. It looked unfamiliar, detached. As if I hadn't seen my own handwriting in a long time. As I was writing, I felt like I was watching someone else write the words "# of study villages", "population of study villages", etc....

Moons of 2012 - #2

I almost forgot about chasing moons, for some reason, I thought it was going to happen next week, and then as I was biking home, I saw the almost-full moon high in the sky, and it was still so light out (only about 5:15pm). Anyway, I remembered the next day (actual full moon), but I was worried that because it rises 56 minutes later each day, that it would be too dark by the time the full moon rises. I biked over to the reservoir, ready to take some sunset and moon rise photos. This month, the sun is
scheduled to set a few minutes later, so I was hopeful.

In the 1st photo, you can see it just starting to appear behind the trees.

In the last photo, I switched to manual mode. I had been using aperture mode for all the other photos.

Details:

Date: Feb 7 2012

Location: 7 hours east of GMT, BKK time zone

Moon rose at: 6:25pm

Sun set at: 6:24, but got dark at about 6:45

Moons of 2012 - #1

I've decided that I will test out my photo taking skills by capturing all the full moons (or almost full) of this year. Here's my first attempt. Of course, being my baseline photo, it is crappy. Therefore, you shall see drastic improvement by at least Moon #7.

Details

Date: Jan 9 2012

Location: 7 hours east of GMT, BKK time zone

Moon rose at: 6:35pm

Sun set at: 6:06pm, but it got dark about 15 min later.