09/03/2026
Photo of the Day
Credit: Cyril Stanton
Side of I-25, a mile or two south of Bernalillo.
My image of the Supermoon is probably the one photograph of mine that required the most planning.
Knowing a Supermoon would be rising to the east on August 30, 2023, I decided to try to capture the event. I wanted to create a forced-perspective image with something interesting in the foreground. One day, while driving east through Albuquerque toward Sandia Crest, it occurred to me that an interesting composition might be to photograph the moon as it rose behind the complex antenna farm atop the crest.
Using the PhotoPills app, I calculated where I would need to position myself and when the moon would be at the right elevation relative to the crest. A few days beforehand, I drove to the general location just off I-25 near Bernalillo. Using PhotoPills? augmented-reality mode, I refined the camera position and took some test shots to determine the focal length and composition I wanted. To further dial in my settings, the night before the Supermoon I photographed the moon from home at various focal lengths.
On the evening of the Supermoon, I arrived early, set up, and pre-focused and framed the camera on the antenna farm. I used a Canon R5 with an adapted Sigma 150?600mm Contemporary lens mounted on a sturdy tripod with a geared head. I settled on about 570mm, which I had found to be a particularly sharp focal length for that lens.
As the moon began rising behind the antennas, I took a series of photographs using a wired remote shutter release. I came away with several good frames, but this was my favorite.
An unexpected footnote to the story came a few months later: the company that installed many of the antennas on Sandia Crest somehow came across my photograph on Facebook. They contacted me and purchased a print, which now hangs in their offices in Texas.
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