Eclipse 2017

Several months ago, my husband told me there was a total solar eclipse going through the state below us. He thought it'd be neat to see it. Looking at the date, I realized it was a Monday... and the day after we returned from a camping trip (which took us further north, away from the eclipse). We debated what to do. Since we weren't organized enough to have booked a hotel or made a camping reservation several years ago, we knew the only way we were going to see it in totality was if we got up super early and drove down there. Where we lived it was supposedly going to be at 90%. We debated if that extra ten percent was worth it.

We both got the day off of work, but it wasn't until my brother, newly returned from his travels around South and Central America, said he and my parents wanted to come chase it with us, that we committed for sure to giving it a try. In the weeks leading up to it, the news reports were quite dire: traffic would be so intense, it would take days to get in or out of the totality zone, gas stations would run out of gas, there would be no food, no bathrooms, etc.

We decided to go anyway. What can I say, we're great decision makers.

My parents arrived at our house shortly after we got home from our camping trip. We unloaded the car as best we could, then immediately repacked it with water, food, and even an emergency "bathroom" I created out of a Home Depot bucket, a little toilet seat left over from potty training, and a bunch of plastic bags. (Which I thought might be overkill, but it turned out not to be: It did get used by one child). Then we all tried to go to sleep. Of course, that was a night where the toddler suddenly decides to party all evening and my stomach decided to act up. In the end, I'd been asleep about 2.5 hours when the alarm went off at 2am. Fabulous.

We were on the road by 3am, my husband and kids and I in our van and my parents and brother in another car. We made it to the Tri-Cities near the southern border of Washington around 5am. Through all this, my brother was checking his phone repeatedly- all roads were "green" (or no traffic) to our destination. At this point, I started to think we might actually make it. Amusingly, he also kept an eye on the traffic on the west side of the state- much more 'red' over there! (It's a lot more populated).

Sure enough, driving through Eastern Oregon was the easiest thing ever. It was a beautiful drive with the sun rising over the Blue Mountains. My kids slept occasionally and didn't complain much, even the toddler. They're good travelers for how young they are in general, and they were excited about the eclipse. Eventually my stomach settled down. We made it all the way to Baker City, just inside the path of totality, right about 40 minutes before it was supposed to start (and thus quite awhile before totality). We debated whether or not we wanted to keep going- we were already in totality, I didn't want to load my kids up in the car again, and who knows what we'd find if we kept going? Here there was a park- I didn't want to get stuck on the side of the highway. But my brother insisted the roads were clear and we wouldn't get stuck, and that 30 min more of driving would get us more time in totality. So we went for it.

We made it to Durkee, OR, which is such a tiny town I'm really not sure it even has a stop sign. I saw literally two roads. We went on the one along the train tracks. There were 2-3 other groups nearby: another family, and some college-age girls who said they were from Portland, and a few others scattered up and down the road. It was a perfect sunny day and HOT even though it was mid morning. We set up our camp and some games for the kids (we had a bean bag toss in our car from camping), sunscreen up, busted out our glasses, and started watching as the moon slowly inched its way across the sun.

The sunscreen is kind of a sad story, actually. So, one problem is that mid to late morning is my daughter's nap time, so she wasn't in the greatest mood. Plus, on our way out to the camping trip I thought I'd forgotten the sunscreen. We were stopping to pick something up from a sporting goods store anyway so my husband grabbed some. All they had was the "typical" chemical based sunscreens. I don't typically use those on my kids because they give my oldest eczema and I don't like keeping track of different sunscreens for different family members. It wound up being the only one in my purse for our Eclipse Adventure, too. I guess I'm not used to using them anymore and I assume I used way too much or something, but somehow it got into my daughter's eyes and she was crying and crying about it, saying, "Eyes! Owie eyes, Mama!" and sobbing. She's too little to appreciate the eclipse anyway, but I hadn't expected to have such a sad kiddo on my hands. It was a little warm out there, so I sat with her in the car (which had shade) and that seemed to help. Still, I had a sad girl clinging to me most of the time we were there.

When I got out of the car (I'd been sneaking looks at the eclipse through the sunroof) I noticed it was much cooler out. I think it was about 50% at that time. Interestingly, the light had barely dropped at all.

In fact, other than the temp dropping, we noticed very little change in light until around 90%, and even then, it was more like "a cloud going over the sun" than anything else. Even at 99%, right before it went, it was still what I would call "daylight", it just seemed "cloudy."

And then totality. Totality was WOW. First of all, it was so sudden! It was like someone turned off the lights. A few birds went flying off, the temp dropped even more, and the sky went a deep blue (not quite black) and we could see stars. Yet, all around us at the very edge of the horizon, you could see a glimmer of light, like a sunrise. And then the sun! It looked so BIG. Everyone's seen the pictures but it's hard to get perspective to understand how big it was in the sky. Picture a big full  moon, except that part was black instead of white. And all around it was the sun's rays, reaching out towards us in lines like the points on a star. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. We had two minutes (and a few seconds) in totality.

What was especially cool to me was how cool everyone else thought it was. People nearby were cheering and clapping, and my family was all exclaiming over it. We were all exhilarated by the time it was over. My grumpy sad daughter, who spent the whole time clinging to me and snuggled in, occasionally sniffing about her eyes, looked up at briefly, so at least she can say she's seen it, even if she'll never remember, hahaha! None of us had ever seen an eclipse in totality before and my dad and my husband (and my oldest son actually) are kind of "space nerds" so they were especially excited. It turned out to be kind of a big family-bonding experience and my dad said several times how cool it was to experience it with all of us. I felt the same way. Totally worth the lack of sleep and the drive.

The drive home wasn't as awesome as the drive down. It actually took nearly twice as long. Some of that was from bad decision making- trying to get around the traffic we encountered and winding up on some crazy detours- and some of that was just heavier than normal volumes, and some of it was because there were random lanes closed for construction (not that we noted any actual construction happening, mind you), including over the bridge across the river into Washington! COME ON, Oregon DOT. Give me a break. You can't tell me you didn't know this was coming... time your construction projects a little differently, please!

Anyway, including a few stops, it took us 6 hours to get down there, and 9 hours to get home.  I had to warn the kids to be quiet a few times, otherwise, they did great.

Totally worth it.

Here are some pictures. I decided not to photograph the eclipse itself. To photograph anything not in totality, you need a special filter, which was apparently going to cost me $100 (no thanks). You can photograph without a filter in totality (and look directly at the eclipse without the glasses in totality as well!) but I'd have needed my tripod / shutter remote etc all set up. Which I could have done, but I wasn't even sure when we left that we'd made it to totality, I wanted to actually enjoy the experience and not be so focused on capturing it, and if I had the lens / tripod / etc set up for capturing totality I couldn't taken pictures of all of us during the partial stages. Plus let's face it I'm not going to get the pictures the pros did, even if they would have been cool. So I opted to just take pictures and document our experience. My husband did get a quick shot with his GoPro that does not in any way reflect the awesomeness of how the sun / moon looked during totality, but does give a sense of the darkness.

Without further ado...

His comment was, "The sun looks like Pac-Man!" Kid has a point... 

Our spot. 

Checking out the view from the train tracks!

The boys were thrilled with the train tracks actually. They had to pretend to be trains for a bit. 

Me: "Hey guys look at the sun so I can take a picture, will you?"
Dave and Greg: "Hey let's all point in different directions!" LOL! 

Dave's totality pic from the GoPro

We're already making plans for the next eclipse in seven years. We're thinking a big family gathering in Mazatlan doesn't sound too bad!

Photo Challenges

I was added to a photography group on Facebook that I'm really enjoying. Apparently, there are 100 days between Memorial Day and Labor Day, and the purpose of this group is to take a picture and post it during that time. I'm doing a daily photo challenge anyway, so I thought this would be fun. The group facilitator posts a prompt / challenge that we are supposed to try and complete at least once during the week. I thought I'd share my first month of "challenge" shots here- and some background info, like how I took them and why I chose them.

Week One: Harsh Light

Harsh Light (in direct sunlight) is not a photographer's favorite but there is a lot of it in the summer and you miss a lot of good opportunities if you don't know how to use it. Here is the one I chose for the challenge:

Exposed correctly for his face, hair slightly blown out but I like that effect so it's okay, nailed the bubbles. I just made sure the overexposed parts are not really visible in the frame! :) 

Week Two: The Decisive Moment

I'd never really heard of it before the challenge, but apparently the idea is not to just take 549836745986754-billion pictures and then choose the best moment from them, but instead, just watch and wait, clicking the shutter at the exact moment in time that tells the story you want to tell, not a moment too late or too soon.

I watched him run through a few times and then took this one on the first snap. Not bad! That face, though. :)  

Week Three: Get in the frame

This concept has gained some popularity in the social media world lately, and the idea is for moms to get more pictures of themselves (especially with their kids)- exactly how they are. Not waiting to be perfectly made up or photo-ready, since we usually aren't. Our kids don't care how we look but will want pictures of us one day. And, much to my dismay, selfies don't count, the idea is to go for real pictures. I agree with the concept that I'd like more pictures of me with the kids but struggle with the idea of not making myself photo-ready. 

So I used B&W, which hides a multitude of flaws, lol!  I used a stack of books and the timer feature on my camera for this, because my remote batteries were dead and I was too lazy to go find the tripod (very real life, lol). On the first day of summer- when we could finally sleep in- that there baby got me up way too early, so I decided to capture the moment. In my pajamas. In the interests of total honesty, I will admit the only staging of myself that I did was to put on a bra. Because seriously. LOL. However: no makeup, no hair done. 

Week Four: 1/50 SS (or lower)

The idea here is to use a slow shutter speed, something those of taking pictures of kids usually avoid because with fast-moving tiny people, a slow shutter speed usually = blur. But, blur can have its uses in telling a story so the idea is to get comfortable using it.

I knew as soon as I read the challenge that I wanted to use it to try panning. I tried this years ago for a photo challenge I did with some friends and it really didn't work. I think I tried it a few times, actually. It really didn't work for any of them. Panning, in case you don't know, is when you track your subject and move your camera along with it, so the subject stays in focus but the background blurs with an element of movement (not nice creamy swirly bokeh, but streaky blur). Think pictures of professional bike races, or something.

So, because I knew it'd be hard for me, I decided I needed a wider range than usual for "distances in focus", so I put the aperture up as high as I could go. I needed to do this anyway because I was shooting in daylight and of course, to get the panning effect and meet the requirements of the challenge, I had to use a shutter speed lower than 1/50. (I wound up having to use 1/30 to create the balance I wanted).  The advantage to the high aperture was that a greater range of distances from the camera would be in focus, important because I wanted my subjects moving, but I knew I wasn't going to move. (Apparently some people pan by moving alongside their subjects- I can't figure this out- unless they are on wheels, it seems like it would be bumpy and create blur that way. And if you're on wheels, WHAT ARE YOU DOING LOOKING THROUGH THE CAMERA! YOU ARE GOING TO CRASH, OMG, TBI.)  Anyway. I had the boys race back and forth in front of me in a straight line so they didn't vary in distance too much, although obviously some. But I think the higher aperture helped compensate for that.

So then I picked a spot in a park I liked, and had them get to it! I'm actually super happy with the result...

Owen's a touch blurrier than I'd like but Toby is pretty sharp (at least his head is, lol) and hey, it just adds to the story! Pretty dappled summer afternoon light through the trees, a few clovers, and brothers racing... Perfect! 

Editing Magic

So with my 365 Project and now, this daily summer challenge, I have had the opportunity to learn a lot about photography... and a lot about editing. There have not yet been a lot of editing-specific challenges, but a lot of people have posted images that are amazing and something I have not yet figured out how to do with my camera. Thankfully, they are very nice about answering questions and so I have learned a few tricks. 

I'm not going to lie, for quite some time I've considered editing to be sort of... cheating. Ish. I mean not exactly, but to me, if it's POSSIBLE to get it right SOOC (straight out of the camera) then you should. Plus I feel like it takes more skill to actually learn to use your camera instead of relying on post-processing (editing). I shot in manual mode for three years before I got an editing program (lightroom). I have had it for two and a half years since and have barely touched its capabilities, yet it definitely improved my photos. Now I've come around a bit on editing and my thought is this: you should first get really good at using your camera, then really good at editing. Mastery of both (not just using one to compensate for the other) will result in truly amazing photos. So, I'm working on my editing skills! 

One skill I've been trying to develop lately is fixing funny exposures or tricky lighting situations. For instance, this shot... 

SOOC. If I exposure correctly for the shadowed part of the face, the other half of the face (plus the beautiful background) will be blown out. So I exposed for the background / a cross between the two sides of the face- just enough to keep the shadowed side from getting too dark and the light side from getting so blown out the data is gone. 

First a did a few things to get the photo in general to look the way I wanted: vignetting,  decrease the exposure a bit until the lighter side of the face looked good, play with contrast, etc. Then, I used a brush tool on the shadowed side of the face and hit "invert mask" so I could change just that. I lightened it a few steps and liked it pretty well actually! 

Just for fun, I lightened it a lot more. I wasn't sure what I would get. You can get a halo effect around your subject or an obvious circle if you're not careful. If I were going to go back and edit more, I might make another pass with a new brush over the dark spot in the middle of his forehead and see if I can't get that toned down. But, that aside, I think I actually like this. Yes, one side of the face is still slightly shaded- but that's how it was- and I feel like this is closer to what your eyes actually see in these types of harsh light situations. Might be overkill though. I can't decide.

I did a similar thing in this picture, although it was actually easier because I didn't have to be as specific. For this one, I turned the aperture up as high as it would go so all the reflections on the water would be sparkly! I feel like this also kept the background looking decent, but maybe that was just the exposure triangle. Anyway, everyone turned out a little darker than I wanted but it was okay because I could see the background more (and it's so pretty you want to see it!) and I was pretty sure I had caught Toby in the air (but it was honestly so dark on my camera screen I could barely tell). Post processing made me LOVE this one...

SOOC. I really like the moment, water sparkles, and framing. I also like the sun flare. That sun flare turned out useful in editing... 

As I decreased the exposure and increased the contrast in post processing, the flare stood out more, which I liked. It also gave me some leeway when I went to lighten Toby because he's in the flare so it helps distract a bit from any halo I might have created when lightening him. I lightened every single face in this picture. For the most part it wasn't enough to be able to see much detail (there really wasn't enough data for me to do that anyway), but at least you have a better sense for the moment. The only thing I don't love is that I totally created a halo around the kiddo on the blue floaty... but I'm convinced it's not horrible unless pointed out. (But you can see it now, right? On the sides of the pool it's most apparent).
I suppose it still has quite a few technical flaws (boy I'd love a wider angle lens...) but this is exactly how it looked in my memory, and it was great night, and so I love it. 

Most of the time, editing is not so complex. A few clicks and I'm good. For instance, this picture of my friend's baby is decently well exposed (I do like to err on the side of slightly underexposed when taking the picture because I hate when it's overexposed and you lose data and then you can't fix it in editing...) and pretty cute on it's own... 

This baby did not want to smile at me and I knew her mom was wanting a smiley pic of her for a one-year-old picture to put on their wall. So I did a little cropping... 

... and some contrast and saturation changes and upped the exposure and I honestly forget what else, probably vignetting because I do love me some vignetting... OH and I edited that scratch off her forehead because nobody wants a scratch picture on a wall portrait, "real life" or not! 

The thing of it is, I'm still barely even touching what LR is capable of doing. I need to understand more about tones and that whole hue - saturation - luminance sliders under the HSL menu and... yeah.  Apparently you can buy filters for LR. That's kinda cool. I think eventually, I'm going to take a class! 

In the meantime I'll settle for practicing. That's what all these photo challenges are for, after all... practice... 

Dandelion Fluff

So I was given a macro lens tube from a nice photographer friend and then it was suddenly May, which apparently in Internet Photography Land, is "Macro May". Which as far as I can tell, means I'm supposed to use the tubes a lot and take pictures of things really, really close up!

I've been having fun with a variety of flowers. But I really thought it would be fun to take pictures of a dandelion being blown!

Here's how it went:

First, a dandelion intact, prior to any blowing. I chose the smallest lens tube in the hope of being able to see a decent amount of the dandelion in focus, but so far as I can tell, macro lens tubes wind up with a super shallow depth of field (compared to a macro lens, I assume). I haven't played with my settings a ton, so maybe that's not always the case... but that's where I'm at, now. Anyway, I just held it in one hand and took the picture with the camera in the other:



It looked pretty in the sunlight but tragically, this was as in-focus as it got. It looked better through my viewfinder so I'm not sure what's up with that. My shutter speed was quite high so it's not a camera shake issue... something about the lens tube causes this and only about 1/3 pictures winds up focused the way I think it will be.

Then I brought it down low enough and summoned my assistants (aka children) to do some blowing.

Best one I got from this pose. I didn't love how the grass just disappeared into a green blur. I might as well have had it in front of a green wall or something! 

Interestingly, even using the multiple-frame mode on my (admittedly rather basic and thus probably not that fast) camera, my options were apparently barely-blown or basically-done dandelion. I tried having the kids blow more slowly, but just couldn't get what I envisioned.

Anyway, we went right down to the grass level for the next attempt... and found a patch of sunlight for added shine!

Not bad but I wish it was more in focus. 

However, being down in the grass meant my kids were blowing from the top-down and it didn't have the greatest path in my opinion. So, I had them stand on a chair and aimed the shot over the fence so at least the background would be more variable. 

This would have been PERFECT if it had been in focus... sadly... this was the best I got. Oh well. 

I need a new camera (I have my eye on one) that is full-frame, because then my lens wouldn't crop things in so much. I'm also not a fan of the directly-centered dandelion, but couldn't fix the crop without cutting something off. Oh well... it's a learning process. Macro May has been fun!