When photographers Les and Mary Anderson watched their first solar eclipse together, it was a life-changing event for them. Their goal is to help people to have a memorable, safe experience when watching and photographing an eclipse.<\/p>\n
The Andersons recently gave a presentation at the Photographic Arts Building in Balboa Park to members of the Meetup group, \u201cBest Places to Photograph in San Diego,\u201d on how to view and photograph the eclipse occurring on Aug. 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want you to enjoy the eclipse, and to do it safely,\u201d Les said.<\/p>\n
The August solar eclipse will start at 9:07 a.m. and end at 11:46 a.m. The total eclipse will be the first one that can be seen from the continental U.S. since 1979.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack then, it was only the upper west corner. This time it cuts completely across the U.S. and everybody will see at least a partial eclipse, as here in San Diego,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
The best place in San Diego to watch and photograph the eclipse \u2014 which will only be a partial one locally \u2014 is anywhere with a clear sky.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, it\u2019s more fun to watch with a group. I\u2019m guessing there will be a few local and neighborhood events throughout the county. I know the Fleet Science Center will be doing something,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
Les agreed. \u201cIf there are coastal clouds, then head inland, but San Diego in August should be good from your own backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Andersons stressed that the eclipse needs to be experienced first, with photography only second in importance.![\"Chasing](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/030916-Eclipse-Day-Base-Collage-Horizontal.jpg\")
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\u201cFor those who stay in San Diego, you can photograph other people watching the eclipse and pinhole crescents through the trees,\u201d Mary said, adding the necessity of watching the partial phases of the eclipse only through solar glasses.<\/p>\n
Even an amateur photographer can shoot an eclipse successfully.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost everybody has a camera with them at all times in their cell phone. Some great images can be taken with them. Digital point-and-shoot cameras will also work,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
Their passion for all things astronomical began at an early age. Mary was in the third grade and her parents subscribed to the First Book of Astronomy. \u201cI was hooked,\u201d she said. \u201cMy parents then purchased me a small telescope. I still have pencil drawings from sunspots I sketched from looking through that telescope\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
As a youngster, Les was into all things nature, which led him straight into the sciences, including astronomy.<\/p>\n
The Andersons met in May 1990 on a photo field trip to Yosemite sponsored by San Diego State University.<\/p>\n
\u201cLes sat next to me on the bus. We call it now our five-day, four-night first date,\u201d Mary said.<\/p>\n
Les remembers talking to Mary all about the animals, plants and geology of Yosemite until the sun went down. \u201cThen up came the night and she told me about the sky,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
They have been married for 25 years and travel the globe together to photograph everything under the sun.<\/p>\n
Of all the photographic experiences they have both shared, Les considers the total solar eclipses to be the best.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have taken us to places we would have never gone, to see things we would have never seen, to experience anywhere from 32 seconds to five minutes-plus of totality. Basically, blinks of an eye in time we will remember the rest of our lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAbsolutely chasing the eclipses is my favorite, too,\u201d Mary said. \u201cIt\u2019s on our travel planner for as long as we are able.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t until I met Mary that it caught fire and with our first total solar eclipse together I was hooked, both ways,\u201d Les said. \u201cMy first words after the eclipse were, \u2018When and where is the next one of these?\u2019\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew then he was a keeper,\u201d Mary said, as everyone in the Meetup group laughed.<\/p>\n Photography became an interest to Mary shortly after she began to work at the then-new Reuben H. Fleet Space Theater in 1973. She was hired as an usher and then became a console operator of the planetarium shows.<\/p>\n \u201cI helped produce the shows. Part of that was photography. Everything slide-based, including the old Kodalith Black and White for titles. That got me seriously interested in photography,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Les caught the photography bug while he was out on hunting adventures with his family in the mountains and deserts of Utah, where he grew up.<\/p>\n \u201cTo the dismay of my father, I found I much preferred photography. My first real adventures in photography started in the \u201870s,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The big jump in the Andersons\u2019 photographic prowess came when they joined a camera club in the Photographic Arts Building in 2010.<\/p>\n Les is now president of the Southern California Association of Camera Clubs, which oversees the Photographic Arts Building in Balboa Park. Mary is the first vice president of programs. In the next few months, they plan to present their program on viewing and photographing the eclipse to more than 500 people. \u201cIt is our big chance to share what we have learned so others can get the most of the experience,\u201d Les said.<\/p>\n Meetup group member Joseph Podell raved about the Andersons\u2019 presentation on March 9.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an excellent seminar, very well presented and covering all the particulars for shooting the eclipse. Les and Mary are the Les Paul and Mary Ford of photographing celestial events,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Charles de Leon agreed. \u201cVery informative.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 Cynthia Robertson es una escritora independiente local.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Por Cynthia Robertson<\/p>","protected":false},"author":749,"featured_media":251398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Chasing solar eclipses","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/749"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Chasing](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/Les-and-Mary-Anderson-gave-a-talk-at-the-Photographic-Arts-Building-on-March-9-on-how-to-photograph-the-August-21-2017-Solar-Eclipse.jpg\")
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