Full Moon Looks Like Giant Eye In Stunning Rock Arch Photograph

A photographer in the US has captured a stunning snap of a full moon through a rock arch.

Zach Cooley took the amazing shots at Arches National Park, Utah, on 28 October - and from his specific vantage point at that specific time, the distant moon and the rock arch appeared to come together to form a huge eye.

Caters

This was not a chance encounter, however. Zach was in the right place at the right time, but only because he had planned and waited accordingly.

Sharing the shot he'd dreamt of on Instagram, Zach said: "Happy Halloween weekend!

"I planned an entire vacation mostly around the fact that the moonrise would align with this arch and I could get something resembling a spooky eye on the week of Halloween.

"Over two nights I got some single shots and double exposures. I thought this one was best for the eye look, what do you think?"

Caters

As you might expect, most people thought it was bloody great, and his original post received almost 18,000 likes.

However, in this modern age of social media and viral content, people often find themselves drawn to one of two extremes: believing everything they see without critical evaluation, or becoming overly cynical to the point where they won't believe anything.

In Zach's case, following the viral popularity of his photos, he found a lot of people were accusing him of faking the photos.

In a bid to set the record straight, he decided to share a few more photos from the shoot and provide a bit more background.

He explained: "My 'moon eye' image from the other week has received way more attention than I ever would have imagined, and that's been pretty exciting. After being shared on Facebook and Reddit it went somewhat viral on both.

"I didn't become aware until the posts had taken off quite a bit. It became overwhelming to try and keep up with everything between those platforms and Instagram shares as well.

"I wanted to thank people for their comments, and also try to keep up with conversations going on around whether the image was Photoshopped\fake\etc, by answering questions, addressing various claims, etc, but it was pretty much impossible. I essentially gave up."

Caters

He continued: "That image, as I shared in my original post, was an in-camera double exposure - two consecutive photos merged together in-camera when taken. I wish that information was always shared, but I understand why it isn't always passed along.

"One fascinating thing to me is that for the most part the premises for people guessing that the image was fake are completely false. The top two reasons are something along the lines of 'The moon is never that big', and 'The moon never has that alignment'.

"To help set the record straight I wanted to share this series of photos, all of which are single exposures, taken the night after the moon eye image.

"All that talk seems a bit of a distraction to me though, not so sure I care too much to have those types of conversations. I see a lot of beauty in nature, and I enjoy capturing it and sharing with others. It makes me happy to know that sometimes people enjoy my photography, and most of all when someone is inspired to get out in nature more because of it."

Topics: Awesome, Community, Moon

Jake Massey

Jake Massey is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from Newcastle University, where he learnt a bit about media and a lot about living without heating. After spending a few years in Australia and New Zealand, Jake secured a role at an obscure radio station in Norwich, inadvertently becoming a real-life Alan Partridge in the process. From there, Jake became a reporter at the Eastern Daily Press. Jake enjoys playing football, listening to music and writing about himself in the third person.

@jakesmassey