Summer Solstice | Strawberry Moon

June 20th, 2016

By Bessie Young

“It is Summer, it is the solstice the crowd is cheering, the crowd is laughing in detail
permanently, seriously without thought. - William Carlos Williams”

San Francisco 2016 - Bessie Young Photography-107 pano.jpg

I was one of the lucky ones....

Ding... my phone went off. Ding, ding... again. Ding, ding, ding.... again and again. I found myself in San Francisco on June 20th. My goal was to get pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset, but for some reason people kept texting me! As I stepped away from my camera and looked down at my phone to see what was going on I found that I had a few texts from different people. The first message 'hey girl! camping this Sunday?' ... the second message 'hello? what are you doing?' ..... the third message 'Heads up!!! There's a once in a generation event happening tonight! The strawberry moon! Summer solstice coinciding with a full moon!' .... the fourth message 'it's supposed to be the strawberry moon tonight just fyi'....

Umm what!!!! Yes, that got my attention in the matter of seconds. "once in a generation event"!! So of course I had to get my google foo on to research this so called strawberry moon. It just so happened that I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time! Talk about amazing! I was one of the lucky ones. One of the people that actually witnessed this event happening. I was even luckier as I just so happen to have all my photography gear in order to capture this amazing event! Wow, just wow!

So, what is this once in a generation thing that I am talking about? The summer Solstice and the Full moon occurring on the same day. The full moon rose on the same day as the June solstice for the very first time since 1948, and I got to photograph it!!

San Francisco 2016 - Bessie Young Photography-94.jpg

According the the farmers almanac:

““For the first time in nearly 70 years, the Full Moon and Summer Solstice coincide on the same day. This full Moon rises just as the Sun sets. The moment of full Moon is early Monday morning, 20 June. So it will look equally full on Sunday night and Monday night. You get two chances to enjoy the Solstice” strawberry moon!”

Read the full article here:

http://www.almanac.com/content/first-day-summer-2016-summer-solstice

Learn more about the summer solstice and full moon occurrence from the National Geographic site here

or from the Treehugger site here