Moon's Spine

Coastal India · landscape

A near-full moon hangs low above a dim coastline, its reflection drawing a vertical spine of light down the calm water.

There is a particular hour after midnight when most of the coast is asleep and the only light left is whatever the sky has on offer. On the night I took this, the moon was waxing — close to full but not quite — and the air was so still that the water reflected it as a single hard column. The reflection on calm water is always taller than the moon itself; physics quietly compensates for the curvature of the planet.

I shot this with a long exposure, which has the effect of smoothing the water into a sheet and exaggerating the brightness of the moon until it almost looks like a flare. There's a faint suggestion of a star above it — a planet, maybe — and the dark line of trees along the shore at the bottom. Otherwise, nothing. Just the moon, its reflection, and the slow understanding that the world goes on being beautiful when you aren't watching.

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