The Story of the Moon Church

The best things happen by accident. When we moved into our house in the Posázaví region in January 2024, I had no idea how many beautiful landscapes I would discover here. Morning fog, which I love photographing more than anything, is almost the most common in the whole country here. Early in the morning, all I have to do is look out of the window and decide whether to go out with my camera or stay in bed a little longer. Of course, it has its downsides too. More than once I simply didn't have time to go out and take photos, either because of work or because I had to take the kids to kindergarten, and then I could only watch the beautiful foggy valleys and feel sorry that I had missed them.

Not long after we moved in, I noticed some kind of structure far away on the horizon while looking at the landscape. My wife and I were trying to figure out what it could be, but my 500 mm telephoto lens soon settled the argument. It was a church with several tall trees next to it. It was pretty far away in the distance, 17.5 kilometers (11 miles) as the crow flies, but when I zoomed in, it looked more than promising. So I opened a map and started trying to figure out where it was. After about half an hour of searching, I knew exactly which church it was. And don't be mad at me, but I won't say where it is. I don't want dozens of photographers to show up there one day. Anyone who really wants to find it can do so, it's not that difficult 😊.

Anyway… this church sitting on the horizon kept fascinating me. Despite the huge distance, it became a recurring subject in my minimalist photographs of the morning fog in the Posázaví landscape. One morning, when I was leaving for work, I even handed my wife a pre-set camera. I told her that I really needed to photograph the red sunrise behind the church, but I didn't have time. I called her afterwards from the car and talked her through how to compose the shot…

• 

• 

• 

• 

Autumn 2025

Then came September 2025 and a total lunar eclipse. It was supposed to last quite a long time and, even better, it was going to happen as the Moon was rising, which opened up some interesting possibilities for composition. I spent quite some time thinking about where to go to photograph it when the idea of that church on the horizon suddenly popped into my head. A quick check with a map and my planning app confirmed that it could work.

I packed my gear, drove half an hour to get there and went out onto a freshly mown field, standing directly opposite the entrance to the church and far enough away to make the Moon stand out. Unfortunately, there was haze. And there was so much of it that by the time the eclipsed Moon finally appeared, it was already out of my planned frame…

What happened next could best be described as a sprint for a new composition. The Moon moves across the sky much faster than you might expect, so I grabbed my gear and ran closer to the church with the camera still on the tripod. The landscape was sloping down into a valley there, which I hoped would give me a little more time to find a good composition. Completely soaked in sweat and, after stepping into some very deep mud, dirty up to my ankles, I eventually reached the place where the following photograph was taken.

I am incredibly happy with the result, partly because I had to fight for it with a fair amount of improvisation. By the way, it is one of the photographs that is currently hanging in my exhibition at Karlštejn Chateau.

Summer 2026

Every year I take a break from photography for a few weeks, sometimes even two or three months. It usually happens in summer, when the landscape is dry, morning fog is rare and, when it does appear, it is usually at an absolutely ridiculous hour. This year was no different, although I did catch some of the most beautiful fogs on June 21, the summer solstice, when getting up really hurt.

Since then, my camera had mostly been resting until the end of July, when I was tempted to photograph the full Moon rising. I checked the angle in my planning app and found that, with a bit of luck, I could catch it directly behind my favorite church. It was also close to home, so I walked to the viewpoint in my slippers with fairly low expectations. After all, 17 kilometers is a long way, and my 500 mm telephoto lens is still not quite long enough for this kind of shot. There was also a lot of haze again…

The result exceeded my expectations, and I know one thing for sure. Next summer, when the full Moon rises in this direction again, I need to get a longer lens so the final photo can be even better.

And this slowly brings us to the main event, the solar eclipse on August 12, 2026. I had a note in my calendar for a long time saying that I would go to Spain that week, but I never actually made any proper plans. Ten days before the eclipse, I tried to plan a last-minute road trip with some friends. They were interested at first, but in the end we couldn't make it work.

A total solar eclipse is something I have wanted to see since 1999, when I started an eight-year grammar school and our class teacher told us about his trip to the path of totality at Lake Balaton. But I am also a photographer, and when I experience something like this, I want to bring home the best possible photograph. An eclipse in the evening is perfect for that, because you can include the silhouettes of buildings, people, or basically anything your creative mind can come up with in the composition.

That was actually what worried me most about going to Spain. I didn't know the area, and I would have to rely almost completely on maps and advice from the internet. Most likely, I would end up at a location with hundreds of other photographers, which would make any improvisation on site very difficult. And as if that wasn't enough, car rental companies had pushed their prices to astronomical levels. Even the cheapest cars were around CZK 25,000 for two days, roughly €1,000…

In the Czech Republic, the eclipse was going to reach up to 88% coverage and would also be above the horizon. The shape of the partial eclipse also offered some interesting possibilities for compositions. The idea of placing the crescent Sun between the towers of a two-towered church sounded like a very good alternative to going to Spain.

The problem was that most churches have their entrances facing west for historical and theological reasons…

One of my alternatives was a church in Chrudim, but during my research I discovered an ugly shopping centre right in the view. Hazmburk Castle in the Central Bohemian Uplands looked interesting, as did Kunětická hora and Ještěd. But none of these places really felt like my kind of landscape.

I spent hours looking at maps and trying to come up with something. St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague would have worked well, and I already have it photographed in the morning fog. It is also a truly impressive building. But again, there would be dozens of other photographers taking the same shot…

And then I looked out of the window and it suddenly hit me.

My church.

I quickly opened the map again and checked the possible viewpoints from the right angle.

Bingo. This could actually work…

As the big day approached, I found myself more and more torn between the two options. The thought of seeing the solar corona with my own eyes and experiencing that almost mystical moment of totality kept running through my head, and I kept checking possible flights.

On Tuesday, the day before the eclipse, I already had return flights to Valencia in my shopping cart. But first I took my four-year-old son to the church to see whether my Plan B was actually good enough.

And that's when I knew.

One look at that perfect silhouette on the horizon and one innocent comment.

"Daddy, I want to see the eclipse with you."

At that moment, all thoughts of a night under the stars in Valencia disappeared. Sharing the experience with my family was more important. Being able to explain to the kids what was happening in space and having them there while I created photographs I would remember for the rest of my life was a better idea than one and a half minutes of totality in Valencia.

Completing my unique series of lunar and solar eclipse photographs with the same building was just a nice bonus. After all, a solar eclipse is basically an inverted photo of the Moon too 😃.

And next year there will be another total solar eclipse in Spain. With better planning than this year, which is basically any planning at all 😃, I will experience it with the whole family.

All that was left to do was clean the gear, charge batteries, find a second tripod, bring my old Nikon D7100 back to life for shooting the sequence… and get some solar filter film. I thought I would be able to buy it without any problems at our local observatory.

Well, I couldn't.

People had bought it out almost everywhere. I called practically every shop, observatory and planetarium within 150 kilometres, and nobody had any left. Someone on Facebook offered to sell me what was left of his, but he was all the way in Náchod, which was already pushing the limits of what I could manage in time.

In the end, I made an almost three-hour round trip to Neratovice, where another listing had appeared.

Everything was ready.

Now I just had to not mess it up.

I have to admit, I was nervous. I knew very well that there was no room for mistakes. There would never be another chance to do this again. There were also high clouds in the west, which didn't exactly help with the nerves.

I went to the location alone to set everything up. Once everything was ready, I took out my fishing chair, my special eclipse glasses, and the show could begin.

My wife and the kids arrived a little later. I will never forget the moment when the kids came running towards me, jumping around me and climbing all over my shoulders, while I went to show them what was happening in the sky.

After a quick warning not to bump into the tripod with the camera shooting its sequence, we spent some time watching the Moon slowly covering the Sun. The Sun was moving into the clouds, but luckily it was still clearly visible.

I took the second camera with the telephoto lens and started photographing the details with the church. The kids were running around me, chatting excitedly, happy, asking to see the photos on the camera display.

• 

• 

• 

• 

We kept shooting as long as we could. Then we had a snack together and got ready to go home.

I took one more photograph of the red evening sky behind the church and thought to myself that this was exactly how I had imagined it.

My daughter went straight to bed when we got home. My son still wanted to see the shooting stars. The Perseids were at their peak that night, and it was also a new Moon, so the conditions were basically perfect.

We sat on the fishing chair behind the house, watched the sky and enjoyed some beautiful fireballs until it was time for my son to go to bed.

At least for him.

Full of impressions, I didn't fall asleep until late in the morning, after going through the photos from one of the cameras and reliving that beautiful evening one more time.

As I like to say:

Photographers live twice…