The moon has had a great influence on Japanese culture, particularly in poetry. A few days ago, on the night of the Summer Solstice, while walking near the Douro River, I cherished the full moon rising over the Montemuro Sierra.

I was heading down towards the river when I saw the moon behind a large maritime pine tree. The large disk glowed and illuminated the path. In the sky, completely clear, stars shone. Two epigrams by the great Japanese poet Oshima Ryota (1718-1787) came to mind.

Born in Shinano Province, he was the third head of the Setsumon School and one of the most famous of the eighteenth-century haiku revivalists. He travelled extensively throughout Japan, had many students, and published a large number of collections of haiku poems, among which I remember two: "In the June rains, as if by stealth, / One night the moon shines through the pines" (p. 354); "Oh! moon, if born again, I'd be / A pine-tree on a mountain peak." (translated by Basil Hall Chamberlain in "Basho and the Japanese poetical epigram", 1902, p. 354).

I took advantage of the excellent sensor of the Hasselblad X1D-50c and set the camera at a very high ISO. The pine tree was manually focused. I was pleasantly surprised by the excellent colour reproduction in these extreme conditions. The complete absence of wind and a perfectly static atmosphere allowed me to use a very low shutter speed. Placing the camera on a tripod, I got a clear image.