Jill’s Moon
I knew Jill Zwicky as a neighbor, collaborator, and friend.
Her photography was a force — she could take the rarest, most fragile moment and return it as something everyone revered.
About six months before she passed, I told her the full moon would rise perfectly between the Two Rock pinnacles the next evening. I couldn’t be there, but I hoped she might. Those rocks have long been a waypoint — for the Miwok, for explorers, for settlers — and still a timeless frame for sun, moon, fog, birds, and passing weather.
I wasn’t sure she’d go, but the next day her image appeared: powerful, exact, transcendent. She had nailed the shot. When she passed less than a year later, I felt that photograph was a parting gift — a portal caught in alignment just before she stepped through her own.
In the years since, I tried to capture my own version to honor her but weather, timing, and gear never cooperated. Two years ago, I arrived early, tripod ready, heart set, yet another attempt! I felt this was truly the year I would get the shot. Yet when the time for the moonrise came, no glow appeared between the rocks. A glance north revealed my mistake — the lunar ascent would begin a quarter mile off. Crestfallen, I began packing up.
Then I felt Jill’s smile — that warm, enveloping laugh that moved through you.
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“Take the ridge shot anyway,” I told myself. “Jill would.”
I hustled up the roadside for a new angle. Just as I dialed in the focus, a lone cow walked into the moon’s path. The beauty of it stopped me. I nearly forgot to shoot. Then a car approached, forcing me to lift the tripod before I could capture it. By the time the road cleared, the cow had wandered on.
Again disappointed. Again hearing Jill’s laugh in my chest. I reset for a simple moonrise shot — and like clockwork, a second cow stepped into the moon. This time I caught it.
But the most extraordinary part of the evening wasn’t the photograph. It was what happened through the lens:
I could feel the Earth turning — the landscape sliding away from the moon instead of the moon rising. For that moment, her spirit felt like it was ascending while I dropped gently beneath it.
So here is my testament to Jill.
This is Jill’s Moon. This shot was a major piece in my show this Fall titled Milking Light at Usher Gallery Petaluma (www.milkinglight.com) .
