There was a lunar eclipse last night. Our area was supposed to see near-totality conditions.

So what’s a photographer supposed to do? Haul out the Beast of course! Because it’s perfectly normal to do that in the pitch black backyard at midnight, right? :) (Yes, the neighbors have come to realize that I’m a little crazy!)

Rich joined me to squint up at the sky, marveling at the tiny patch of normal moonlight remaining as the rest of the surface took on a dusky red tone. Pretty cool.

Then I played with some selective Lightroom masking to balance the tones, which are always the hardest part of eclipse photography. Tone down the highlights in the “normal” lighting, open up the shadows in the eclipsed shadow. Modern mirrorless cameras and higher ISO processing make this so easy. I remember photographing eclipses when I was just happy to get the camera to even focus during totality!

I’d say this fun was worth being a little sleepy this morning.