Behind the Shot
When Kelsey Williamson thinks of the moon, she remembers that its influence over the tides connects us to the ocean. And she loves the ocean, spending half the year swimming with whales in French Polynesia and the other half at home in Hawaii. So the moon holds a special place in her heart.
For this image, Williamson zoomed in on a crescent moon above French Polynesia with a 100–400mm lens. “There are always new things to learn in photography,” she says. Shooting a subject so far away isn’t something she usually does, but the glow of the moonlight that night spoke to her, and she wanted to capture how it made her feel.
The moon is a powerful force. This stunning print is a reminder that we don’t always have to see things up close to feel their pull, and there are endless ways to find inspiration. Sometimes we just need to look up.