The Eclipse Is Eclipsing

 I love photography.  There's nothing more challenging than trying to capture nature's critters.  Another of the subjects right at the top of the list is a solar eclipse.  There's a big one coming next year if you live in Texas, so this one was good practice.

I had my gear set up at 8:00 am.  At my location, it was supposed to begin at 9:30 they said.  They were wrong!!  Let's take a few test shots first.  I mean really, who could possibly remember exactly what settings worked last time.  

There's a ridiculous number of possibilities, so let's start here.  This is actually the night before, so I would be prepared ... like Nancy the Girl Scout.  Trouble is, I was NEVER a Girl Scout.  I got a little worried when I saw all the clouds.  I may not see the eclipse at all.

Kind of cool the way the clouds looked.

The trouble with the sun is you can't look at it.  It's too darn bright for one, and for another, apparently you will go blind.  I heard Girl Scouts need to be prepared, so I purchased ten pair of little glasses that don't even begin to fit your face.  You have to hold them in place.  That doesn't work when you're moving four buttons on your camera.  This was my first shot of the sun.  Weird, that little cloud hanging out there.

That's when I remembered ... MY FILTERS!  I scrounged through my backpack bag looking for them.  What a surprise when I found THE piece of filter paper meant just for this occasion.  YAY I'm in like Flynn.  Or not, because it's only a flimsy piece of plastic that has to be held in place with a rubber band. 

Do you think I could find a rubber band?  Of course not ..... because I threw all of them away while cleaning out my desk because I NEVER use them!!  At last, after looking three times, I found one in my kitchen drawer.  And we're OFF!!  

Trouble is, that filter now changes ALL the settings.  No worries I thought, I've got an hour until it starts to happen.  WRONG!!  It began here at 8:20.  The cool part is the filter lets me look through the camera lens without the little glasses.  Above was my first image and I knew it wasn't right.  More and more adjustments until at last I was happy with what I was seeing.

I set my timer to go off every 5 minutes so I could run outside and snap another picture.  I think in all I got about 40 images.  I'm pretty sure you wouldn't even notice there was an eclipse if you didn't have those glasses to look through.  

Two hours of editing later, I had all the images together in one photo.  This is another one of those memory problems.  When you only do this once every ten years or so, it's hard to remember just how to do it.  It was interesting to see the third one from the right.  Through the camera lens, it looked like mountains on the sun.  

It did get a little hectic around here, since while the last of the pictures were being taken I remembered I was out of bread.  I tossed everything in the machine and hit the GO button.  Ummm yeah Nancy ... see how close that machine is to the edge of the counter?  

Lucky for me I came running back in just in time.  It fell right into my hands.  How lucky could I be??  That knead cycle really rocks and rolls!!  Disaster averted!

Oh my gosh .... there's just nothing like the smell of fresh bread baking.  I even threw in some sunflower seeds for good measure.  I'm anxious to experiment with English muffin bread next.

It turned out to be a gorgeous fairly cool day with lots of sunshine.  I tried sitting out for awhile, but couldn't stand the thought of the mess in the house.  I was back organizing ... okay, lets face it ... I was back hiding stuff in every corner and cupboard I could find!!!  I'll rearrange it later ... maybe in another ten years!!!