2017 - Total Eclipse

My friends Seth Grenald, Robert Brewster and Kip Stolberg and family converged on my home in Ft. Collins, CO the day before a total solar eclipse. We intended to get up to the north a bit more and be right along the path of the totality.

We had a couple of major cities to choose from in Wyoming and Nebraska, but after reading about the expected chaos we chose a location in-between those cities. It turned out to be a great plan.

Our destination was Agate Fossil Beds National Park near Harrison, Nebraska. This was a wonderful location. There were about 200 cars there, but it wasn't crowded. There was lots of space and nobody was stepping on each other. There was sort of a sense of community.

At one point one of Kip's kids vanished without trace, and everyone was looking for him. Dozens of people were checking every location in the park. Then we discovered he had climbed under some stuff in the back of Kip's van and fallen asleep. Everyone breathed a sign of relief and got back to getting ready to shoot.

My poor buddy Seth had rented and tried to configure a rig with two cameras and tracking software. It turned out to be a bust. He had to resort to manual like the rest of us.

The moment of the totality arrived and everything stopped. The temperature dropped, the crockets started chirping, and the skies darkened above us while there was a rim of daylight all around our location.

We were in awe of the moment. I have never seen anything more beautiful. It was stunning.

Alternating between shooting photos and just enoying the moment, I got some terrific shots, and I have included some personal shots from our journey as well.

Enjoy the images below.