As is usually the case when I chase the moon, a few clouds obscured the moon as it began to rise. Abandoning plan A, I chased across the desert to frame the moon behind a huge Saguaro – I’m happy.
Plan A was to get the moon as it appeared just above the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale. One or Two days before a full moon is the ideal time to shoot it. There is enough ambient light in the sky as the sun has not completely set on these days. This enables you to properly expose for the moon without blowing it out. Checking altitude and azimuth data on Photographers Ephemeris allows me to plan where I will be and when. No matter how much data I have, mother nature loves to play games with me, I’m convinced she especially loves to mess with photographers. I welcome the challenge.
Suzanne is a professional freelance photographer whose work regularly appears in Arizona Highways Magazine, as well as numerous national publications such as National Geographic,Outdoor Photographer, Digital Photographer and calendars for the Nature Conservancy, Smith Southwestern and The Global Action Team.
Suzanne is a photographer, speaker, author and educator. Teaching Lightroom and Photoshop in private and group settings.
Suzanne was born and raised amidst the green rolling hills of the English countryside but is now completely at home surrounded by the arid desert and swirling sandstone of the Southwest. She finds Arizona a land of intense beauty and preposterous contradiction. Her photographs capture the diversity of waterfalls, snow-capped mountains, autumn leaves and desert sands, from the magnitude of the immense landscape to the smallest, most discreet of details.
The desert can be unforgiving of even the smallest errors, treating the unprepared harshly. But, for the few with passion, those who are willing to begin their trek at the end of the road, the secret world of the Southwest is revealed. Suzanne loves to challenge the ruggedness of the land, the great distances to be traveled, and intense weather conditions to capture images of Arizona and the Southwest that expose its many treasures and extremes.
Her images reflect her keen sense of curiosity, patience and the ability to see the world and its magic places in new and creative ways.
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