Photographer Mat Otero works for The Associated Press in Dallas, Texas, just inside the path of totality for this week's solar eclipse. He created a solar filter and brought three cameras to the Dallas Zoo for the big event. Clouds rolled in. He thought he’d be skunked. Then, for just a few minutes, they parted during totality.
FILE - The moon covers the sun during a total solar eclipse, as seen from Fort Worth, Texas , Monday, April 8, 2024. FORT WORTH, TEXAS — Photographer Mat Otero has been working at the AP in the Dallas bureau for nearly 30 years. In that time, he’s covered an annular and partial solar eclipse, so he was prepared for the challenge of making a photo of the only total solar eclipse on this scale he will likely cover in his career and ISO with a 6.
Yoga mat in tow, I made sure to pack a small lunch for myself and a reporter working our spot in the Zoo gallery. As totality moved in, there were a couple of technical issues that needed working out: changing to a hard wire when my remote did not work and repositioning the tripod to frame the sky — where’s the sun again? I sometimes describe my job as looking through a straw and now it’s also on a cloudy day.
I had read and talked with other photogs about how fast the light-burst phase of the eclipse would pass but, wow, was it faster and more dazzling than I expected. I might have audibly gasped as I “prayed and sprayed,” firing frames and watching the ever-changing light. I even said to myself aloud, “You can see the fire.” Thankfully, the clouds stayed open long enough to allow a good look. As soon as the giant shadow passed over, I tagged my possible best photos in the camera, then ingested them into my laptop for a quick edit and dispatch to the photo desk editors.Visual communication can be timeless, needing no translation.
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