Every so often an opportunity pops up in photography which I cannot ignore.  Such was the case this past Sunday night.  It was a total lunar eclipse.  What was unique about this lunar eclipse is that it sat low on the horizon.  In fact, the moon rose that night already partly into the eclipse.  So, naturally, I needed to dust off my camera and try for a shot.

If you’ve hung out here with me for a few years, you might remember that I’ve tried photographing eclipses in the past.  These include lunar eclipses and the 2017 solar eclipse.  However, for 1 reason or another, those photos didn’t work out for me.  I’ve since removed them from my history.  Still, perhaps it was time for another attempt.

Sadly, this eclipse might have ended in disaster for me as a photographer.  I kept tabs on the weather and it was scheduled to be mostly cloudy that night.  Clouds have denied me several eclipse opportunities lately.  Those clouds might have completely ruined things for me.  But they didn’t.

When the time approached, I watched the skies like a hawk.  I was searching for a break which promised to show the moon.  It wasn’t promising.  I was working on talking myself down but didn’t succeed.  So, I drove out to evaluate the situation.  I previously chose a spot to go and view the moon with a great landscape to boot: Bryce Canyon.  On the drive, I was still certain it would end up a bust.  Still, we kept going.  I had a feeling I couldn’t explain: the feeling that something great was going to happen.

When we were almost there, we started discussing where to set up as the moon started peeking out from the clouds.  An idea occurred to me which I hadn’t considered before and we made our way there.  We weren’t the only ones with that idea.  However, most of the people already present (and the ones dropping in throughout the entirety of totality) didn’t stay long.  For much of the time, we had the viewpoint to ourselves.

I found myself amazed by just how much the sky cleared up during our wait.  Only a few clouds remained in the east.  However, these ended up as strategically bad clouds.  They were hovering right in the path of the moon!  There were several large segments of time were they hid the moon entirely.  When that happened, I started working on properly exposing the landscape below.  After all, the eclipse moon in the sky shots are pennies a dozen.  Getting a lunar eclipse that low in the sky over a proper landscape scene was the much more rewarding photo.

Bryce Canyon is designated a Dark Skies site for a reason.  The night is dark.  Not even the light bleed from nearby Tropic and Cannonville could light up the canyon enough.  I needed a long exposure to make the shot work.  The area is much too big for light painting to work there.  When the clouds parted enough and the moon appeared, I went to work photographing the lunar eclipse over the landscape.

All in all, I don’t think I captured a terrible representation of the May 2022 lunar eclipse.  I managed to capture that landscape below as well like I wanted.  Since lunar eclipses like this don’t happen often, I’m very glad I found a few windows of time where I could capture the landscape scene I envisioned.

What do you think of my latest eclipse photo attempt?  Do you think it worked out?  Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.