At midnight Friday night, I was out in the back of the house with my tripod set up, trying to figure out how to capture the look and feel of a beautiful night with fast-moving clouds and a moon that popped out at unpredictable moments.

It was beautiful; it was also the kind of photograph I’d never been able to take successfully until last night. It’s a complicated picture to capture, especially with a moon playing hide-and-seek.

I remember my instructions about settings for my aperture and shutter speed. I remembered to use the tripod.

I remembered to keep the shutter open for longer than usual, sometimes up to 12 seconds. My first 20 or so attempts failed, but the last six or seven started to click. I was nervous; this was a big test of what I had learned.

I decided to quit while ahead and retreated inside to see what I had done. It’s a matter of learning, no big news to most of you, but a shock to me. I just had to learn more, and I finally did.

I took the camera upstairs with me to look at it when Maria fell asleep. I didn’t dare sleep with it.

Tomorrow, I enter into hot negotiations with a photographer ditching his Leica Q2 color camera for a much bigger and more expensive camera. He seems like a very nice guy who is willing to negotiate.

We’ll see. In the meantime, here are four of the photos I took last night at midnight; they are the kind of photos I had in mind when I decided to get my new camera.  Come and see. Each picture shows a different sky. The Leica misses nothing, not even the leaves on the trees.

The moon was not cooperating, darting and out of the scattered clouds, but the light it shed was beautiful, and I tried to shoot it through the trees. For me, it was a beautiful combination.

I’ve read that the cumulus clouds scatter all over the sky at night when the air cools and the radiation from the sun fades. I saw it happening, which was exciting.

I feel like I’m beginning to see the world anew.