Eclipse

On 11 August 1999 parts of Europe enjoyed a total eclipse of the sun. The path of totality passed directly over my mum's home village in southern Germany. We were staying at my uncle's farm, and watched everything from the field in front of the farmhouse (see today's placemark). This photo was taken just moments before totality - handheld, with a short telephoto lens, an automatic exposure, and no filters. Very naughty but it seemed to work OK.

It was really very eerie. It became noticeably dimmer. Birds roosted on the barn eaves, silence reigned, just as we were told it would. Suddenly as totality began everything went very dark indeed. We could actually see the shadow racing towards us from the hills across the valley. Sadly there were clouds obscuring the view so we didn't get to see the corona. The clouds also meant that darkness wasn't quite total, as a few kilometres away they were still in sunshine. We were really annoyed to hear that everyone in the next village down had enjoyed an incredible view of the sun's corona - just our luck.

Any relation between today's post and another, less happy German eclipse is purely coincidental.

Exposure details not recorded - Minolta X500, 135mm lens. 11 August 1999, Maubach, Germany. Placemark.