On January 7th, 2023, the full moon called the Wolf Moon, rose above the Minneapolis skyline. I have always loved photographing the full moon in relation to a city skyline, but I am habitually horrible at planning and keeping up with when the full moon will rise, or where I should be to get the two in the photo together.

The few times I do remember the full moon is approaching, I'll make some plans and totally end up in the wrong spot and end up watching the moon rise way off to either side of the city. The last time I actually figured everything out correctly was on Halloween in 2020, but a cloudy horizon blocked that one.

I even have the tools available to me to know when and where I should be for the moonrise, and it has been a process learning how to properly use those tools. But this year, I started things out with a bang. Hopefully I can keep it up and get more shots like this going forward.

To get this photo, I was at Lake of the Isles, standing on the bridge that goes over the creek/canal between Lake of the Isles and Bde Maka Ska. I arrived about 20 minutes before the moonrise to make sure I got some photos of the city beforehand. 

There is one thing that always blows my mind when I do get it right and am able to watch the m on rise behind the city, and that is simply seeing how fast that moon moves. Once you first see the top of the moon pop up behind the skyline, you only have a handful of minutes before the moon is too high above the skyline to get a good shot. It really moves much faster than you could expect. 

Because the moon moves as fast as it does, and because it is so bright, in order to get a decent photo of it, you have to set your camera like it is a bright, sunny day. All of my nighttime photos are long exposures, but in this case, I had to take the photo with a really quick shutter. 

I'm not sure whose house that is across the lake from where I was, but the fact it was so well lit up, and that their tree was still lit up absolutely added the cherry to the top of this photo. 

I hope you enjoy my full moon Minneapolis kyline photo. You can check out print options for Wolf Moon Winter in Minneapolis. 

See all of my photos of Minneapolis Minnesota.