I only do this one day a year

There is only one day a year that really draws my interest. My wife knows it isn’t our anniversary. My children know it is not their birthdays. My priest knows it isn’t any of the church’s Holy Days. It’s certainly not April 15.

It’s that one day a year when a full moon rises over farmers harvesting their fields. Sounds somewhat odd to think that such an ordinary event would hold my interest for all of my adult life.

I’ve few obsessions. Most are of a very personal nature and certainly not going to be discussed here. However, if Diane Lane ever decides to say yes, I’ll talk about it.

Getting a photo of a farmer running his combine through a field of corn or soybeans just as the moon creeps over the horizon has become an annual search bordering on obsession for me.

When September ends I’m looking at lunar calendars and talking to farmers about which fields they expect to be harvesting on the day when the moon will be full. Most think I’m a little nuts. I am, about getting this photo.

Some years I’ve no chance because the night is cloudy. Other years I’ve made a poor choice in location, farmer or field, and missed the photo.

The ideal photo that I see in my head is the combine rolling toward me with a large moon rising over the cab. Shot with a very long telephoto just as the combine crests a rise in the field and a remote strobe in the cab would be perfect. It’s never happened.

I certainly could make it happen. Rent a combine and farmer and a field, check the lunar tables for the exact angle on the Earth’s arc where the moon will rise and wait.

The actual shoot wouldn’t last more than five minutes. That’s about how long the moon would be in perfect position behind the combine.

The reality is that I am at the mercy of the elements and the random arrangement of combine, field and moon. All the combines I know of are busy working the fields with their owners too busy to pose for a crazy photographer’s photo.

My best work has come in the last couple of years although 2009 was a wash. Bad weather.

These two photos show a quick shoot from one pass of the combine in front of the moon. The moon rose behind clouds blanketing the horizon. I could only wait as it crept through the edge of the band of horizontal clouds revealing itself only slightly in the thinner sections. Once it broke above the barrier I had only two passes before the combined filled and left the field to dump its load into a hauler.

When it returned the moon had risen higher in the sky making the composition too separated.

I quickly traveled to an adjacent field for a different farmer and combine. i arrived just as he was making a final pass before offloading to a hauler. While unloading the farmer, one who knew me from several previous shoots, came down from the combine to tell me he was glad I was there. He’d been thinking about me as he saw the moon break over the trees because he knew it was a photo I’d been trying to shoot for years.

He apologized for not having my card in his pocket so he could have called. I still got a nice photo, at right, although it isn’t exactly what I had been trying to do for so many years.

I’m going to continue to try for that photo of the moon rising over a combine. I’ve tried for so many years that it is now an obsession. It’s a healthy obsession and far more likely to happen than that offer from Diane Lane.

Find the one photo that you’d like to have in your portfolio. Don’t try to shoot it right away. Think about what will make it a great photo and practice all the techniques to make it happen. I’ve tried for nearly 40 years for the perfect moon rise photo of a farmer and a combine. I’m still trying and will try again next year and probably the year after that.

It’s my obsession.