I captured this photo of the supermoon on January 2 at 7:15 a.m., right before sunrise. I planned this shot, waking up extra early just for this photograph. I checked my phone’s weather and coordinates application for positioning, and then I camped out at a friend’s house on the South Portland side of the harbor, waiting for the moon to descend. I tend to shoot in the early mornings and late afternoons when the light turns golden, but recently I’ve been getting into nighttime astrophotography, which this moon image exemplifies.

For me, photography is totally captivating. Give me a camera and I will wander, looking for scenes to shoot. With a camera, I become acutely aware of my natural environment. Time becomes irrelevant in the vacuum of the lens. My world becomes light, colors, movement, angles, and textures. I’m self-absorbed in that moment—it’s for me, alone.