Eclipse - April 8, 2024
A total solar eclipse for many is a once in a life time event and I wasn't going to miss this cosmic event or opportunity for an awesome photo. So where should we begin this story?
I guess the story begins in early February when I asked some of my college casements if they would be interested in traveling and photographing this event. A bunch said yes, I ordered a bunch of solar filters and we didn't talk about it again till the week before and really didn't make plans till the Friday April 5th and I guess this is the real beginning of the story.
April 5th, I was in class talking the group about what we might want to do on the Monday. Are we going to GO Train somewhere? Can we get a ride? And more just where are we going? Our teacher Denni said he was taking his kids just outside of Niagara to see it, not the falls them selves because millions of people were going to be there but some area the was still in the path of totality. That when another one of out teacher walked in, Lisa, who said we should just come up to her farm in Kingston because its out of the city and still in the path of totality. Class started and we didn't talk to her again about it.
Saturday April 6th, talking in out group chat about what we are going to do and I'm asked if our teacher was being serious, inviting us up to her farm. So I emailed her and it turns out she was! So after a few more emails to confirm and talking with the group we were set with a plan for Monday.
Sunday April 7th, I confirmed that everything was still a go and where we were all meeting the morning of.
Monday April 8th. We all met up and started the drive up. It was a long drive to Kingston, I'm not use to being in a car for that amount of time but I had a little pain in my lower back from the trip. Once we arrived at the farm we were greeted by Lisa and her dogs, her newest puppy dog Olof only about a year old is the biggest dog I've ever met. He stands at about 4ft and can put his paws on my shoulders with out standing up fully, he's still a puppy so he don't know his own strength and nocked me over several time though out the day, he also likes to nibble and kind of chew on your arms, this isn't a bad thing it don't hurt, he just wants attention. The problem is that he's also a drooler, my sweater was covered in doggy drool by the end of the day. Lisa gave us a tour of the rest of her farm, she has a number of bee hives set up but unfortunately all her bees due to a parasites (this actually got a lot of bees in south Ontario this year)
After the tour we all sat down for lunch and set up to watch the Eclipse and hoped that the clouds would move away. They kind of did, we had rolling clouds for most of the show. I set both my cameras up one for video and the other for photos. The photo one I also set to bracket the exposure with 5 images, the though being I could merge them together in in photoshop if needed and just a better chance of getting the image I wanted. With my two cameras set up and everyone watching we just hoped that the clouds would give way for the big moment
Totality.
The clouds just started to give way, I was looking thought my glasses watching the last sliver of sun disappear behind the moon and once it did the photographer in me took over and instead of looking around or up to the sun I jumped up to my cameras to remove the solar filters to get the image I was came all this way for. Once my cameras were reset I looked up and saw it,
A white halo in a black sky
It was truly awe inspiring, I can understand why ancient people thought this was an end of world event. I left my camera set up and took in my surroundings, I listened to the sounds of nature and observed the wild life on and around the farm. The chickens in the fenced in coops all most all started going in for the night but the yard rosters just slowed down a bit but the got quieter. After a minute in I started hearing crickets and frogs. I looked up to Sun again and I could see stars in the sky.
A few moments latter it was over and the moon was moving away revealing the sun. quoting Bill Nye "Safety Glasses On!"
The Trip Home
I originally intended to stay for the entire eclipse, until the sun was a full again, but after about 30 or so minutes the clouds rolled over and were so heavy I couldn't see anything. The group waited on me to decide if I wanted to stay longer or if we should start packing up. Looking at the sky and seeing nothing but thick cloud cover across the sky I called it and we started to pack up.
I closed my camera sets up down and pack them back up. I tried to catch a roster again but failed. Little guy ran under the trailer. Said good bye to the dogs, we almost left Atzela as she didn’t want to leave the dogs, and finally we thanked Lisa for having us out to the farm for the day
While on the way home I looked thought the shots I got, you cant base much off of a small jpeg preview on the back of the camera so I didn't worry about it. I picked one that looked decent and did a quick Lightroom edit on my phone and shared it as a story over on Instagram and I enjoyed the car ride home with my friends.
On the way home we talked about what it would be like to live out in the country and what kind of farm each of us would want to have. I decided on flowers, something I could leave alone for extended periods of time if I wanted to travel. Once we were back on the highway the girl decided that this would be a good time to try and teach me more Spanish. This time they tried to teach me Spanish by singing Disney songs, in Spanish obviously. Now I haven't watch the Disney classics in what seems like forever but it turns out I still know all the wards to Mulan's "make a man out of you" it was very interesting singing along in English to a Spanish song.
I didn't get the shot…
When I put all the images on the computer Tuesday I got a sinking feeling in my gut as I watching the previews render.
So many over exposed images…
where was the image I was looking for…
This image I went all that way for…
Did I waste everyone's time when we could have traveled somewhere close…
It also didn't help seeing all the other amazing images on my Instagram feed, images that I wanted to take, the image I didn't get…
I had to walk away from the computer, try to do something else. It took me the better part of the day to return to the computer to look at what I got, to see if I could save something, anything…
I ended up creating a photoshop file of images leading up to and past totality.
I like the image but it still wasn’t the image I went out there for.
Where did I go wrong?
It looks like I just over exposed my images, simple as that. My best guess is that we still had clouds Infront of us at the beginning of Totality when I stopped shooting to adjust the settings and when I resumed shooting the clouds dissipated and over exposed the first 4 images of the bracket set leaving me one 'properly' exposed image and no under exposed images that I needed to be able to see the details such as the Chromosphere Ii would have liked more details in the Corona. Oh well, I’ll get it next time……
I stayed up far to late Tuesday night.
It took me all that time to realize that I missed the image I wanted but I what captured wasn't with the camera it was but it was all the memories I capture with my friends, memory that will be with me for years to come and are more important to me then a few megabits of data will ever be.
So I want to thank my friends for making this day one I will not soon forget
Ana, Arturo, Atzela, Nicole, our Teacher Lisa and her partner for hosting us for the day
