Almost Missed and Extras

As much of a nature, fly fishing, photography, sky-watching junkie as I am…

… I almost missed the eclipse that just happened. If it had not been for a connection on Twitter commenting on it, I may well have obviously stared at my laptop that evening, probably watching something my wife would have dismissed as boring (correctly, I should add), while it all played out.

Where we live, the moon rose well into the eclipse, so it would have been easy to miss.

A bit later, with the sky darker, I tried again to find a long-shutter “sweet spot.”

These sere the best shots I could get. For the record, as I almost never tweak a photo once taken, I had to crank up on both brightness and contrast, afterward, to get to them to clear up. On the second, it did pull out the leaves on the bottom and right, in an interesting way. Unfortunately, as you may notice, the shutter speed being stretched this much also resulted in blurry moon edges, thanks to it’s movement in the sky.

The next night, though…

An almost full moon, hazy clouds with a gap at the horizon (allowing for moonlight to hit the underside of the cloudcover), and a bit of patience, all came together fairly nicely.

This time, no mods made in review. The only accommodation made was the long shutter, to get the glow on the clouds to come out. Moon a bit washed out … okay, looking more like a dull sunrise … but a nice effect.

This one? Standard shutter, and f-stop dialed back to prevent glare. Orchard frames in the foreground.

On my most recent drive, a few additional scenes to share … and to maintain my fly fishing focus.

Both of these are from the South Fork of the Snoqualmie River. The first, a view between the trees as one drives on a small road that parallels the interstate for just a few miles, between two exits.

The second, a stretch immediately next to the interstate. I took the above-referenced side road just to be able to pull off on the side of the connecting on-ramp that would return me to I-90, as there is no place to pull off if you are continuing West, already on that busy throughway.

Now, if i could just find somewhere a bit away from the road noise, with safe parking options, I would be even more happy…

I do like the challenge of scouting for new spots, after all.

Just over 10 days ledt to go! Down to that stage where I’ve checked all my gear (yes, I will likely recheck it, again, before that timer hits 00:00:00:00:00), tied extra flies, and made annoying sure everyone knows I’ll be absent that morning, for at least a few hours.

Until then …

Tight lines …