Eerie: Cave Ghosts, Moon and Fog

Halloween moon

On learning that this week’s photo challenge is “eerie,” I started thinking of all the photos in my library that might fit. My mind immediately went to this one, a shot of a nearly-full moon behind ragged clouds taken, appropriately enough, on Halloween last year.

Just about all of my “eerie” shots involve the moon, or clouds/fog, or both. For instance, this view of fog pouring over a hillside at sunset, and the shadows of the trees inside it.

Fog Shadows - Black and White

Or this one, a this scanned photo of a lunar eclipse from 1994. I’m fairly certain that the bright splotch is the moon, and the rest, including the ring and the sharper image at upper right, are lens artifacts. It’s been so long that I don’t remember any specifics of taking the photo.

Eclipse Ring

Finally I remembered a series of photos I took at the Thurston Lava Tube in Hawaii, trying to use natural light (with only the cave walls to brace the camera) and picking up ghost images of the other tourists wandering through.

Thurston Lava Tube Ghost Images

I have some more shots of that cave over at K-Squared Ramblings. That’s also the blog where I’m trying to do NaBloPoMo this month. I started yesterday with a post about yesterday’s shooting at LAX and the spillover it had on the parts of town near the airport: roads closed, constant helicopter noise, sirens, and thousands of stranded travelers leaving the airport on foot, trudging over a mile dragging their luggage in a ragged line. You know, if I’d thought about it and found the right position for a photo, that would have made for a good “eerie” image.

I remember learning about the OSI seven-layer network model in college…

OSI: The Internet That Wasn’t

How TCP/IP eclipsed the Open Systems Interconnection standards to become the global protocol for computer networking

I remember learning about the OSI seven-layer network model in college, but OSI it was already more or less irrelevant as anything but a way of conceptualizing networking. The main thing that sticks in my head is an analogy to the Taco Bell seven-layer burrito, with each ingredient mapping to one of the layers.

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Last year’s solar eclipse seen from Los Angeles.

Last year’s solar eclipse seen from Los Angeles. I was waaaay out of the viewing area for yesterday’s eclipse seen across Australia and the Pacific Ocean, but I got to see a really good partial eclipse last year. More photos and commentary about the experience on my blog.

Shortly before sunset, Katie noticed a really yellow quality to the light outside the window, …

Shortly before sunset, Katie noticed a really yellow quality to the light outside the window, like an eclipse (we’re *way* outside its path) or inside the smoke plume from a large fire. I went out to see. As near as I can tell, it was the reddish/golden hour light from the sun reflecting off of the cloud layer above us that was making everything look yellow. J came out too, and while he wasn’t terribly interested in the clouds or sunset, he had fun watching cars and people and looking at stuff down here on the ground.

Santa Monica Bay at Dawn

Santa Monica Bay at Dawn

I don’t usually get out before sunrise, but on this particular morning in 2011 I was up to watch a lunar eclipse. I found myself out on the road running along the top of the cliffs near the beach, watching the eclipsed moon set through the haze above the ocean.

You can see the Redondo Beach power plant near the right, with the pier in front of it and King Harbor jutting out into the bay. Way off in the distance you can see the lights of Santa Monica and Malibu, with the Santa Monica mountains behind them.

Discovered I missed a lunar eclipse this morning/last night, but it’s just as well…

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/los-angeles

Discovered I missed a lunar eclipse this morning/last night, but it's just as well I didn't wake up early. (And besides, I caught a great one just last fall) On the plus side, I found a nice list of upcoming solar eclipses searchable by viewing location. August 2017 will be a good partial eclipse from Southern California, and a total eclipse along a wide track across North America. And J will be old enough to appreciate it. Road trip!

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Sun viewed through eclipse glasses

Sun viewed through eclipse glasses on Flickr.

Of the various ways I looked at the solar eclipse, my favorite was a set of “eclipse glasses” made from exposed photographic film. Everything else felt like I was looking at a picture of the sun, rather than watching something here and how, except for this and the welding helmet. And the welding helmet turned everything green.

After looking at the sun for a few seconds through the glasses, I stuck one in front of the camera and took this shot.

» Full blog post & more photos.

Shotwell is getting more annoying all the time. For example: it assumes you’re importing from…

Shotwell is getting more annoying all the time. For example: it assumes you're importing from a pure camera, so if you plug in, say, a smartphone, it offers to import every single image on the device. Including your web browser cache. That's helpful.

But the latest: It strips out timezone data?!?! I uploaded a whole batch of eclipse photos dated tomorrow. At least Flickr lets me fix it with two clicks for the whole set.

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Today, I watched a lunar eclipse, sunrise, and sunset. Probably a first.

Sunset over the ocean.

Today, I watched a lunar eclipse, sunrise, and sunset. Probably a first.

Venus & Jupiter just popped into view. It would’ve been nice to add Mercury too, but it’s below the horizon.

Also: I really should’ve brought gloves.

If I’d thought about it, I could have gone back to the spot where I watched the sunrise this morning to catch the moonrise for full symmetry. Oh, well.

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Lia BrownCool! I don’t think it was visible here…and it was so cold last night I wouldn’t have had much patience anyway…

Dec 10, 2011, 7:38 PM

Kelson VibberYeah, I think you might have been able to see the beginning of it in your area, but not much else.

Dec 10, 2011, 11:06 PM

Wendi HeckathornWhere did you watch it at?

Dec 11, 2011, 2:10 AM

Kelson VibberI watched most of the eclipse from home (well, across the street), then went down to an area of Redondo Beach where a street runs along a bluff above the beach (Esplanade & Avenue A). I tried to watch the moon set while eclipsed, but the sky was too light by then to really see it at that point, so I drove over to an east-facing hill to watch the sunrise. I came back to Esplanade at the end of the day to watch the sunset.

Dec 11, 2011, 11:25 PM

Wendi HeckathornThat’s awesome! I’m bummed I missed it, but I did enjoy seeing the beautiful full moon. Thanks for sharing the gorgeouspics you took. 🙂

Dec 12, 2011, 12:36 AM

Watched the moon go into total eclipse from home, then hightailed it down to the…

Watched the moon go into total eclipse from home, then hightailed it down to the beach to catch the last visible part before moonset without obstructions. No luck. Got here just as the rest of the eclipse hunters were packing up, because the combination of dust, haze, and lightening sky made the moon virtually invisible.

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