Jim pic 48

And so we come to the last of the Jim pics, at least for a little while. This one wasn’t among the stack that he sent me following his trip further out west, but one of the stack that he sent me following the total solar eclipse. He’d been clouded out during totality, but still got a few worthwhile shots, and I considered this one rather enigmatic. Since he didn’t provide any details, I’m winging it here, and he may be in to correct me.

First off, I just liked the overall effect, as if the trees where throwing shadows against the back wall (instead of, you know, there being a collection of storm clouds in the distance behind them.) And I think this was during totality, or close to it – the exposure time seems pretty close to the mark, though I have no idea when totality occurred for where he was since he never told me where he’d traveled to for the shoot. You see, there’s this little effect that occurs at totality that I only heard about in passing, and where I was (deep in a mountain valley,) I didn’t have the opportunity to see it. But at that time, you get a hint of sunset colors all around you, the dividing line between the shadow that you’re in and the sunlit areas outside that nonetheless reflect from the atmosphere – remember, the actual shadow thrown by the moon was some 110 kilometers (70 miles) in width, so the sunlit portions may be as much as half that away if you were centered right in the path (I wasn’t, though close enough for a decent length of totality.) So I think he captured evidence of this unique effect, though to be really compelling it would need to be a 360° panoramic.

I could be wrong of course, and it would still be a neat shot, almost ominous.