A few days ago, as I gazed into the late afternoon sky a beautiful crescent moon appeared in the eastern sky. It was just visible in the bright daylight, but it gave me a glimmer of an opportunity for a timely photo shoot. The problem was no foreground that would work with the moon so high in the sky. Fortunately, there is a county park within a mile of my home, and I remembered that there was a windmill in an open area that might help create a composition.
The potential for a photo with some sunset light started to get me excited about the possibilities. I quickly gathered my camera gear and drove to the park. After walking around for a few minutes, I decided on the best location to setup my camera and tripod. Now I just needed to wait for the sun to set. Sometimes you just get lucky with photography! As the sun was setting the sky began to light up. The problem was the moon had not moved into a good position in the sky. I could not move the moon or the windmill, so I just waited. As the glorious sunset was beginning to wane the moon was in a reasonably good position, so I began to photograph the scene. After a few minutes with the sky getting darker, I noticed two tiny bright lights in the sky to the right of the moon. As it turned out, the lights were the planets Jupiter and Saturn.
It was too bright to see them clearly, but later in the evening the beautiful sunset light would be gone. I just had to take the photographs that were available to me! I am sure this has happened to many of you. The photo below is one of my shots from that evening. Saturn is the very dim light nearest to the moon and Jupiter is brighter and just below it. I hope you enjoy the photo. There was no real planning for this shot. As I said earlier, sometimes you just get lucky and get a decent photo!
C'est la vie 