Summer has come to a close with the arrival of Meteorological Autumn. Although it’s only a convenience for record keeping to move the starting date of the season to the beginning of the month, it also reflects that seasons are themselves fluid. In Colorado, we had an early taste of Fall with a cold front that moved through the area last week.

Another cold front returned with lots of smoke from wildfires in Canada, and left haze in its wake in time for the full moon. Not just any moon, but a “Blood Moon.” That is, parts of the Earth get to see a lunar eclipse on Sunday and Monday, September 7–8. However, this particular eclipse is visible only from the side of the planet opposite Bear Valley and Colorado.

In wanting to catch the nearly full moon, I would either have to try Saturday night, or Sunday morning (although Monday morning is also an option, that’s right before the scheduled publication of this little ol’ photo blog, and after the article is typically written). But first, there is a small matter of a sunrise to attend to.

When the sun appeared, I took advantage of the mobile nature of the drone to fly where I could take another photo like the ones I took earlier, in “A Special Concordance.” The view was just as I had hoped, especially against the red-orange sky.

The smoke had been pushed down southward from Canada by a cold front. Above all that, the jet stream was pushing eastward. That means that smoke may cling to the ground while the clearing sky grows more and more blue.

I don’t always set the color gamut when I prepare to take a photograph with my drone, but when I do, I can set the mood, from cool to warm. Using “blackbody radiation theory” through changing the “white balance” settings, I can either experiment with the color gamut or realistically reproduce neutral whites and grays. While I don’t have to remember Planck’s Law, where every temperature has a specific associated color, or the Stefan-Boltzman Constant, stating that the surface of the sun is ~5800°K, it helps to experiment, knowing that setting lower temperatures allow for “cool” colors, while higher temps make a photograph appear “warmer.”

While film had previously come in indoor/outdoor varieties based on matching the appropriate color range for tungsten lighting (for indoors) and sunlight, digital cameras can have settings for the purpose of creating neutral grays in any lighting condition. Of course, please feel free to share any of your own lessons in photography in the comments—I love to learn more!

Later that same day, in an attempt to catch the full moon, I rode my bike to Hutchinson Park. As a change, I would be riding home in the dark, instead of starting my journey in darkness.

As you can see from the photos, the sky was cloudy and blue up high, but golden bronze and smoky closer to the ground. When editing the photos, I can make sure that the color works by setting the white balance or neutral gray first, before any adjustments to overall saturation or targeting specific colors.

I sorta managed to get a photo of the moon behind the clouds. Unfortunately, the best I could do looks like something had taken a bite out of the moon! Also, the aperture of my drone’s built-in telephoto camera is small, with a fixed focal length (ƒ4.4), and doesn’t really capture details in the dark.

But this could be the closest approximation of a "Blood Moon”—if not the bloodiest! Thanks for reading all the way to the end!