While You Were Sleeping – Full Moon over the 360 Bridge and Austin, Texas

I’m not a big fan of being awake at 4:00am. I like my sleep. But sometimes in order to capture an image I think has potential, I have to give up sleep for a bit. A few weeks ago a full moon rose over Austin, Texas in the middle of the night. Early on a Thursday morning, I pulled myself out of bed and left my sleeping family to make the drive over to the 360 Bridge (also known as Pennybacker Bridge). The air was cold and crisp. I shot from two locations – one on the northeast cliff looking over Pennybacker back to the west and the Texas Hill Country. I also trekked down the trail on the northeast side of the 360 Bridge and shot looking back at the Bridge and the Austin skyline in the distance. I knew a full moon would be overhead, but I was blessed with great clouds, as well. I actually blended two exposures together to capture these images. The first was a 5+ minute exposure at 100 ISO (to reduce the noise). The second exposure had a much higher ISO and was less than 30 seconds in order to keep from having star trails creep into the image (I wanted dots of light rather than the star trails). The blend was easy since everything was the same shade of dark blue under the night sky.
This is one image from that night:

A full moon lights up the clouds and Pennybacker Bridge on a cool January night in Austin, Texas.

For a few more from that night and a few days later, please visit my Austin gallery or this 360 Bridge Gallery.

Stay tuned for upcoming Texas Wildflower images or follow my latest on facebook here.