The Image is the Thing

Last evening, I went out, hoping to capture of the rising Worm Moon, so called because this is supposedly the time of year when worms begin to arise from their slumber.

I drove to a spot where I thought the moon would rise just beyond the tree line, but I don't know if I calculated correctly because the moon didn't rise. Well, it didn't rise to my vision because the sky was completely overcast. I knew the chances of seeing the moon weren't great when I went out, but I had thought that the sky might break, Not a chance.

Surprisingly however, there was an interesting glow beyond the trees. I am not sure why because there is just rural land beyond, but there it was.

So, I took a photo, 15 seconds on my tripod.

When I looked at the LCD screen after the 15 seconds had elapsed, I was surprised to see that the camera captured much more saturation than I could actually see.

What one sees on the camera screen is a processed jpeg image, but I shoot in raw, so when I uploaded the photo to the computer, it was much less saturated.

With editing software I was able to bring back the saturation and even go beyond what the camera had shown,

So, this isn't what I saw but somewhat like what the camera saw.

The thing is, all of the colour was there in the raw data. I just brought it out in processing. I did not paint in colours that didn't exist in the first place.

Whatever your taste with regards to post processing and reflecting reality, remember that reality isn't always what we perceive. Besides that, The Image is the Thing, and I like the image, regardless how it came about.

I am quite pleased with the result and that my time spent waiting for the Worm to rise wasn't totally wasted.