Jupiter, at its closest to the Earth this month, makes for a good photo. Even a short time lapse exposure of the moon at near full (the Strawberry Moon) makes it look like the sun. What I find interesting about this photo is the surrounding elements: the power lines and small stars visible in the background. The photo was taken at about 10 p.m. and further off is a thunderstorm moving in.
Every time I photograph any heavenly body I am reminded of just how small we really are. Remember Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” speech? The photo taken from Voyager of the Earth as it traveled outward in our solar system? We, the small blue dot caught in a ray of sunlight; everything seems so insignificant.
Of course the moon itself is alluring (so I included a photo of it alone). Yet, there I was, looking out at distant objects that humankind has tried to reach out and touch since we looked up. A human being has still never went further than 239,000 miles away from Earth (the distance to the moon), even though we have constructed probes and landers that have went much farther – and are still traveling or working.
So, there is the moon – the furthest a human has traveled, sitting next to Jupiter, where no one has yet traveled, but probes have been sent to, and in the foreground the same technology from about 1900 (power lines); the top of the house, too, is “old technology” construction. I mean, people have built houses like that one for hundreds of years. It is a mix of old and new; of natural and man-made elements.
The Imagists 