Supermoon in Malta
If you don't know what a supermoon is it's (very basically) the point when a full, or new, moon is the closest to Earth that it can be. Apparently it happens around every 14th full moon and I'm getting all my facts from Wikipedia. All I really know is, sometimes, the moon looks pretty freaking huge. And it's beautiful.
There are a million and one incredible, breathtaking photos of the moon, during all stages of it's cycle, but this weekend I took one which I am really, truly proud of. I was in Wardija, Malta with some friends, embarking on a sunset walk when I spotted the moon peeking above the trees, looking much more massive than usual.
OK, so I was a day or so early for the actual full moon, so my 'Supermoon in Malta' is more like a 'Super-ish-moon in Malta' but I simply don't care. It was one of those pictures that I snapped quickly on the move, we had just walked out the apartment and were going on a sunset hunt and I whizzed my camera out, snapped and ran on, without even checking it. It wasn't until I got home a few days later and put it on my computer that I saw what I'd captured and fell in love.
It's pictures like this, ones that make you feel something, that I think are the best. They might not be the most skilfully constructed, or technically captured, but they touch you and stay with you. It makes me realise how small and inconsequential everything is. It's horrible when you have a shitty day but the sun will set and rise again, the world will turn as it always has done and you'll get another 24 hours to try again, then another and another. Make each one count because, if none of it really matters anyway (and really, none of it does) why not just enjoy it. The sun will still set, the moon will still shine and the world will still turn long after all of us, our kids, our grandkids and their extended family are all history.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
- An excerpt of Carl Sagan's reflections on the photograph 'Pale Blue Dot'.