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Moonrise Cruise

Moonrise Cruise on the Bay, The Moonrise above San Francisco is always an excellent photographic opportunity.

You can plan out the moonrise and when the sun will set but the weather on the Bay is always unpredictable.

I use several tools to plan the moonrise above San Francisco.

The first tool is the Photographer’s Ephemeris by Stephen Trainor.

The Photographer’s Ephemeris is used to help with the planning of all types of outdoor photography.

It very helpful for landscape and urban photography.  It is a map based sun and moon calculator and allows you to preplan your photographic locations.

Another tool I use is the SFGate.com website fog forecaster for the San Francisco Bay Area.  The Bay Area fog and particularly the fog at the Golden Gate is difficult to predict.  This fog forecaster can be relied on to give a good general idea of the fog situation on the Bay.

These tools are invaluable to predicting the moonrise and sunset conditions for photography of San Francisco and the Golden Gate area.

The final decision is always where to photograph the moonrise.  There are several locations on the Bay to choose from and mine is normally Fort Baker.

Fort Baker is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  There are easy walks along the waterfront and along the bluffs.  There are many spectacular views of the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco Bay.

This particular photograph was taken on June 14th, 2011.

Everything was in order for an excellent moonrise at sunset from Fort Baker.  The fog report looked good and the moon was going to rise over downtown and just left of the Transamerica building.

On this particular photography shoot what wasn’t in the forecast and unpredictable was the haze that hung over the city.  The haze blocked a clear view of the moon as it rose over downtown San Francisco.

But persistence always pays off in photography.  If you are patient another opportunity for a photograph will come along.

So eventually as the moon continued to rise above the haze and the sun continued to set, a yacht came into view and cruised along the Bay.

A Moonrise Cruise on the Bay provided for a composition of the moonrise, the sunset, the yacht and the city in the background.