Moonrise Over Hernandez

Ansel Adams
Moonrise Over Hernandez
New Mexico 1941

“Driving south along the highway, I observed a fantastic scene as we approached the village of Hernandez. In the east, the moon was rising over distant clouds and snowpeaks, and in the west, the late afternoon sun glanced over a south-flowing cloudbank and blazed a brilliant white upon the crosses in the church cemetery. I steered the station wagon into the deep shoulder along the road and jumped out, scrambling to get my equipment together; yelling at Michael and Cedric to ‘Get this! Get that, for God’s sake! We don’t have much time!’ With the camera assembled and the imaged composed and focused, I could not find my Weston exposure meter. Behind me the sun was about to disappear behind the clouds and I was desperate. I suddenly recalled that the luminance of the moon was 250 candles per square foot…with the Wratten G (#15) deep yellow filter, the exposure was one second at f/32. I had no accurate reading of the shadow and foreground values. After the first exposure I quickly reversed the 8 x 10 film holder to make a duplicate negative, for I instinctively knew I had visualized one of those very important images that seem prone to accident or physical defect, but as I pulled out the slide the sunlight left the crosses and the magical moment was gone forever…”