Black Flag (Full Moon)

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There was a full moon Saturday night. Moonrise was about 5:50 PM, a reasonable hour, so I went out looking for a place where I could shoot it with the Arch in the picture. Driving back and forth on the overpasses across Interstates 44 and 64, looking for a spot to set up the tripod, nothing seemed to work: no sidewalk, tall fence, bad angle. As I drove slowly on the Mississippi Avenue overpass across I 44, I saw the pale yellow globe, fat as a big potato, rising over downtown. That was where I had to make my stand.

The result was a failure. I couldn't come close to exposing for both the moon and the Arch. My hands shaking in the cold, I could not get my tripod and big telephoto lens locked down tight enough for a 1 second exposure without bad shake. To salvage the shoot I tried to get just the bright disk. The sky was black in contrast to the city light below. After downloading the pictures, the moon looked like the emblem on a simple black flag, laden with much more meaning than the Jolly Roger.