Margaret & Ian's life together, including Ian's MINIs!
Yesterday we drove into St Petersburg and visited this spectacular glass sculpture collection adjacent to the Morean Arts Center – so pleased to see “photography encouraged” at an art gallery, too! Here’s lots of pictures, but really you should go see for yourselves …
At least until we move, I can capture great sunsets!
After leaving Charleston and staying close to I-95 overnight, we headed to Branchville, SC where we’d read it was a recommended but quiet viewing town – but the clouds looked bad and getting worse, so Margaret chose to relocate us to Norway which turned out to be a perfect choice giving us not only clear skies throughout the eclipse, but also a chance to do laundry – and a great lunch stop!
The eclipse was even more amazing than we’d imagined, and I’m very pleased with some of the photos I took (especially considering they are all hand-held / no tripod) … amazing too was how it really didn’t get dark till just a few minutes before totality!
In preparation for next month I tried a bit of Sun photography this morning. A filter is essential both to get reasonable photos and to protect the camera; but a lens filter for my Nikon is more than $100!
Instead I found a very inexpensive (<$20) cardboard filter attachment, and tried it out this morning. I think I need some more practice with exposure settings as there’s no detail in the Sun – but the results are much better than with no filter.
Here’s the attachment, and a no zoom photo without and with the filter:
More interesting, some zoomed in images through the filter; the first image shows how the camera struggles to focus with this filter:
I did also try a “welding glass” as a filter but it’s pretty useless, making the Sun green!
With Margaret driving us home this afternoon, we watched the rain get heavier while the sun continued to shine – a rainbow formed of course. But as we got back to Independence the rainbow showed really strongly, with a strong second too; we stopped so I could take photos!
I was very surprised to see the rainbow continue “below” the horizon; not sure if it’s a camera glitch or a real effect!
When we arrived, the conservatory was being redesigned, but now it’s finished. Not all the flowers are in bloom yet, so it’s not at it’s best – but it’s still very beautiful!
I posted this to Facebook this morning, but I’m reposting here:
