I never actually read the book goodnight moon, but I found it an appropriate name for this photograph. I bought this cheap moon nightlight off Amazon for this shot. The website says that the light is for kids, but I beg to differ. I saw several other photographers take shots using these as props and I loved the idea. So, I figured I would try one out myself using my fiance as the model. I have a similar photo of her here.
Initially, every picture I took came out too dark. Even if I put the moon on full brightness, it didn’t put off enough light. As a result, I had to sacrifice some f/ stops to compensate. I shot this photo at f/1.6 and shutter speed 1/80 of a second. Also, I bumped the ISO to 500. Even with these settings, the photo still turned out dark, but I shot in RAW so I wasn’t too worried.
In Lightroom, I adjusted the overall color in the photo, brought in the shadows and took out some highlights. Also, I reduced a lot of the noise. Then, I took the photo into Photoshop and grabbed a stock moon image to bring out more detail from the light. I layered the moon image on top of the nightlight and added a slight bluish glow for a realistic effect. As for the underlying image, I removed blemishes, added color to her lips, and applied a gradient map. The result: this goodnight moon photo picture below. Hope you like the results.
