March 20th, 2015. The day the UK got to see the solar eclipse!
The last time I had the chance to see this was 1999. I was far more excited this time around as I had an SLR and I understood the rarity of this event.... and I wasn't 8.
Photographing the eclipse was always going to be difficult if I wanted to produce something different to all of the other photographs from that day. This was going to be one of the most photographed events of the year so the task of taking a unique photo looked challenging.
The conditions of the day were different to what I hoped, everybody had asked for a clear sky but this was not the case. The clouds soon appeared in the morning and stayed that way for the whole event. However, this played to my advantage. Due to the clouds, the ISO settings had to be drastically changed which created a spooky atmosphere. With the unexpected setting, I decided to photograph the eclipse with a tree which proved to be a fantastic silhouette.
After many, many shots, I still didn't feel satisfied that I had produced something different. Yes it was a little more creative but still didn't have an immense "wow" factor. Time was against me as the moon was retreating away from the sun but then came the stroke of luck I wished for. A bird flew straight in front of my camera and as I pressed the shutter, I knew that I had my photo.
My memory card went straight into my PC and there it was! Only a small amount of editing was applied, the brightness increased just a little, the image slightly cropped and it was done.
Here it is:
www.jackgrayphotography.co.uk