Doesn’t this gorgeous full moon look like something filmmaker Tim Burton might order up? 

Actually, this is last month’s full moon (December 2012).  I had completely forgotten I’d photographed it until today, when I was working with some other pictures from my camera.

Here’s another photo, shot just a minute or so later.

Although its overall look doesn’t appeal to me as much as the first photo (I love the illuminated cloud strata in that one), I like how the moon in this second photo appears to be entrapped inside a thorny cage. 

What’s actually going on is that light from the moon was SO BRIGHT that evening as to completely obliterate the branches’ silhouettes where they crossed over the orb — thus, creating an impression of individual tree “fingers” clutching at it.

Cool, right?