Once in a lifetime.. or maybe twice

As a child I vaguely remember going through a total solar eclipse as a kid of 8 or 9 in India. The local priest had said that the eclipse was specifically bad for my birth star of "rohini" and I had to be kind of quarantined.. or maybe it was my brother that got quarantined and I was in by association. Total solar eclipses meant folks stayed indoors and the ones whose birth star got a hit stayed 16 stories underground.. no I am kidding. They also stay indoors but get to cover their forehead with darbai grass (which apparently can absorb harmful radiation).. 

That was in those days. Last month I got another chance in this lifetime to "see" a solar eclipse that was spectacular. I had plans to even drive somwhere to see the totality, but my office did not plan for it. We had a meeting set for 10-noon. As a photographer, even if not Oregon, at least I wanted to go to some local mountaintop, set up the camera and go for some kind of time lapse composite shot. On a whim I took my camera bag with me.

When I went to work, we were in for a nice surprise. All of us got solar eclipse goggles and we were watching it from the parking lot. I just set up the camera in my office and took shots through the window.

everything looked unreal for those two hours. the colors on the trees and cars were so vivid ! 

Threw in all ND filters one on top of the other (ND2, ND4 and ND8) and it was still not enough! The sun is very powerful.. so I waited for clouds to cover the sun partially and got some shots! 

but the one above was with my iPhone! one of my colleagues pulled out his Huawei phone and got some amazing shots. That thing had a leica camera on it with shutter speed and aperture controls! I could not match those with the iPhone.. the 5D mark ii with a 70-200 and 2x extender.. that got some decent shots..

Was very happy to be able to see this. It was also a nice experience sharing this viewing with colleagues. Bunch of geeks enjoying an eclipse together!

Who knows, maybe time and space will be in my favor and will get to see an eclipse in totality in some part of the world sometime!

Was worried that in spite of the ND filters the lens would have been damaged. So far it seems to be okay on subsequent portrait shots!