The Online Photographer

TOP World HQ was right at the edge of totality yesterday (some sort of joke is begging to be made there, but I don't know what it is). But as luck would have it, Sunday was sunny and clear, and today is sunny and clear, but yesterday was blanketed by overcast from stem to stern, dawn till dusk, start to finish—I didn't see a scrap of blue sky all day, never mind a clear sightline to the sun. I got a taciturn text from Ctein last night: "I saw it!" but without elaboration. It did get briefly dark here, like late twilight, and it confused the birds. But that was about it. Here's my lame record shot of our near-totality, taken with the iPhone's surprisingly good Night Mode:

Darkness at 3:22. The sky to the south-southwest, farther from the path, was brighter, which you can kind of see here.

For half an hour around 1:00 I had a nice conversation with my old friend Jack Mac, who has appeared in these pages a number of times over the years. He was stuck in traffic heading for the totality nearest his home in St. Louis, Missouri. Jack told me he had gone through some preparatory drills the day before with photographer friends, and was surprised how much there was to practice and how many things there were that could go wrong. For one thing, he intended to bracket, and the DR of good digital sensors is so good these days he seldom brackets. The practice paid off:

Eclipse 2024. Photos by Jack MacDonough. Larger sizes here.

Very nice. Jack sells large prints to corporate clients, and often makes presentations of two or more images together; it's easy to predict that some finished variant of this set will grace a few lobbies and boardrooms at some point in the future. (His bestseller is, or was, four photographs of the same view of the same tree in four different seasons, beautifully executed.)

So, didja get anything interesting? Or have you seen any notable ones online?

Here's our last word on the eclipse, by one of the young YouTubers I follow, Elle Cordova (if you were an English major or a humanities type, check out her rap about Emily Dickinson). Like many of her generation, she's very creative, using the new media of today.

Mike

Jac Mac adds: "The photographer friend who told me to take the eclipse missed it as he was caught in traffic. Turns out the most important equipment after a camera is a traffic app. You predicted correctly. I have orders for the series already. BTW, I should update my bio photo with 'Photo by Mike Johnston.'"

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

Kristine Hinrichs: "Here in Milwaukee we got about 90%, similar to 2017 I think. Like everyone else in town I went to the lakefront. My photos of the eclipse are pretty much like all the others I’ve seen. My best are of people watching it. I found the sense of a shared experience very comforting. I spent more than an hour sitting on a ledge next to the lake with three other (former) strangers—I got to know nice people who I’d never have met otherwise. I experienced the signature Smallwaukee moment when I found that I was connected to each of them in some way."

Donald MacDonald: "'Types of Eclipse Photo' from XKCD."

Patrick Murphy, the offline photographer: "You'll probably get a ton of eclipse photos. But since you asked, here are three iPhone pics:

Photo by Donna Colona

"I used a pizza pan's holes to image the partial (57%) eclipse we had here in Orlando. I like the repetitive pattern. I also used a foamcore board with a single 1/4" hole in aluminum foil, to cast an image of the sun onto another foamcore board. My wife Donna Colona made the leaf + eclipse photo. We hereby give you permission to reprint these photos at the greatest blog in the world, The Online Photographer, if you deem them worthy.

"In 2017, we traveled from Orlando to Wyoming to see that total eclipse. It was pretty cool. But for whatever reason, I didn't get the 'eclipse chasing' fever that some have so I skipped 2024. Instead, I am waiting for the 6-minute long August 12, 2045 eclipse that will go right over Orlando. BTW, that gives me an incentive to stay healthy; I am the same age as you!"

Brian Cormack: "We were in totality, and luckily enough it was clear enough to see the eclipse. Now I completely understand why people travel across the country to see it. We went to a park to watch the eclipse over downtown Little Rock. It was along the river, where a few boats from the police and sheriff's office were going by. My three year old is completely obsessed with fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances. And when he saw that police boats actually existed, his young mind was blown. He wanted me to hold him during the entire length of totality, because all he wanted to see were the boats in the water (which were playing 'Total Eclipse Of The Heart' on their speakers). So I tried my best to get a few pictures of the eclipse, all while holding a squirming toddler who was yelling 'police boat dada!!' in my ear the whole time. Here's my shot."