Fall Into the Sky

No abandonments this weekend, though creatively I have been a bit like an empty shell. However, the moon was bright and full and was promised to be a special one and I ended up wanting to take full advantage of it.

Saturday morning dawned grey and humid and just about the most typical Maryland summer morning you could imagine. By the time evening came, however, I was in a better mood because the skies actually cleared up. Miracle of miracles! With plans in the city I was on a tight schedule and already running late… but driving through West Baltimore I saw the huge orange moon hanging over the distant skyline like a fat harvest pumpkin. It was beautiful and it almost physically hurt to see that there were too many trees and buildings to properly photograph it over the spread of twinkling sodium lights.

Keep in mind that West Baltimore is not exactly a place you want to pull over after dark with several thousand dollars’ worth of photography equipment hanging off your body. Local explorers have a joke about certain types of neighborhoods: something about dangling a $1K crack rock around your neck. You get the idea.

The cemetery on the hill was promising, but I’m not outright insane. Turning off the main road to a side street was unthinkable, too. There are no tall public buildings in this part of town, nothing for which we could finagle a rooftop excursion. I’m getting more and more distressed about the moon rising, getting smaller and losing the rich orange color. Then… an idea: The train station! It’s not that tall but it’s outdoors and there are usually security patrols there, even though you can hear a pin drop (or gunfire) there anytime it’s not Mon-Fri rushour.

We pull in, throw on our backpacks and run full tilt up the stairs to the platform, still slinging tripods over shoulders. I’ll chase any light as long as long as there’s light to be had.

The view isn’t quite as lovely as I’d expect. For one, the ghetto is expectedly dark and boring and flat and there are very few working streetlights beyond the parking lot below. It’s a little bit disappointing because I was hoping to get orange moon/orange lights and I had, umm… a bloated washed-out orange thing on my LCD.

Suddenly I hear a semi-familiar pop-pop-pop! But instead of silence or screaming I see bright pink sparks shooting above the treeline right next to the moon. It was a magical moment, even though what they’re doing is illegal and the resulting photo still isn’t all that interesting or good. After I got off two shots they stopped. But the coincidence of the fireworks, set off as if waiting for us… that is all it took to distill my frustration into happiness. This is what I live for: a spontaneously private moment that turns into a little story, and having our cameras there was just icing on the cake.