MOONLIT COVE & LIGHTHOUSE - MENDOCINO
© CHRIS BRATT 2003
Mendocino Headlands, CA 2003
(Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse in distance)

This moonlit photograph was taken at 2:00 a.m. Exposure time was 4 minutes for ASA100 slide film with the aperture of my lens wide open. The blurred white shapes in the water are the visual averaging of about 20 wavesets of whitewater washing over the rocks and beach. The light on the right horizon line is the beacon of the Pt. Cabrillo Lighthouse spinning around and aound during the 4 minute exposure. You can see star trails in enlargements of this image.

All the light in this photograph (with the exception of the stars and lighthouse) is sunlight being reflected off of a nearly full moon. At night our brain resorts to the black and white shadow vision of the photoreceptor cells called rods in the retinas of our eyes. However all the color wavelengths are still being reflected off the subject, and the film can see what the color sensitive cones in our eyes can not because it is so dark. As a photographer the interesting thing is that while I make the image in the dim light of the moon I can only see in black and white, and must wait until the film has been developed to find the surprise of which colors the film captured.