Why is the lighting so nice? You can see light dancing off the front of her torso; if she was being lit by the moon which is behind her, then her body would be no more than a silhouette.

Also, the really subtle details of her veiled dress would be very hard to capture in low lighting conditions.

And finally… How could you get such a nice balance of lighting without photoshop? Whenever I try to take a photo of the moon at night, the moon is immensely brighter than anything else and it either comes out as a cratered looking thing on a pitch black background, or if I put my night settings on it will be a blinding white disk while the other elements in the background will be greyish. Even if this was shot on site, it would have to be stitched together from multiple shots to make it look the way it does. At which point, the photographer will say to him or herself, “Let’s shoot this properly, in a studio, where I can control that lighting to the best of my ability.” Add a few choice stock images, and the art is made.

Beautiful picture, I must say.

thank you so much for sharing this!