My Answer To “What’s Wrong With This Picture”

Background

Several days ago, I showed a photograph and asked: “What’s Wrong With This Picture”.  Here is more information.

Nancy took this overview a minute later. These pictures were taken in March 2016 while we were on a trip to Antarctica. The mountains (and snow) in the first picture should have told you, “We’re not in Kansas (or Florida) anymore”^video. The moon in both pictures is waxing (growing) gibbous (more than half full), meaning the full moon would be about five days later. Those are Gentoo Penguins you see in this picture. As I remember, she took these photos on the way back to the ship after our morning excursion.

Responses

I was a bit surprised that nobody mentioned that the moon, as the subject of the first picture, was too centered, thus violating the rule of thirds. But one member of our camera club did think the image confusing because she wasn’t sure what the subject was. That was a valid point and was probably why Nancy had to be coaxed into taking that picture. The overview shown above might be better in that respect, but here is why I (the technical support guy) found the image interesting:

My Answers

The moon and the sun follow similar paths across the sky. The lighted part of the moon always points directly toward the sun along that path. Every time I’ve ever seen the moon just above the horizon, it was pointing almost straight up (or down). The moon in these two pictures is pointing to the left, a difference of nearly 90° from my normal.

The mountains give almost no locational clue. The snow at sea level tells you that we are not that close to the equator, and the penguins tell us which hemisphere we are in. The specific species might narrow down the possible locations even further. The moon’s angle does the best job, however, of narrowing the geographical possibilities; it shows that we were close to the Antarctic Circle.

To get the same effect with Photoshop wouldn’t be that hard but would take more than just cropping. And this effect doesn’t fall in the impossible range, like a star between the tips of a crescent moon, or maybe either type of eclipse during the quarter moon, so it is unlikely to be found in a unicorn shot or the like. It is just an unusual perspective that I wanted to appreciate for what it was and share with my friends.

This is the third set of articles I’ve published in the last three weeks involving the moon^{1st, 2nd}. But fear not, I’m ready to move on. Thank you for listening.