New York Eclipse Trip
Greetings to all my faithful readers!
Well, what started with an ill-prepared-for event 7 years ago, the day I’ve been waiting for finally arrived. In 2017, I witnessed my first ever solar eclipse, not only as a photographer, but in general. I was not very prepared for this event, for at the time I had just started working at the job that still finances my photographic galavanting today, so I felt I wasn’t in a position yet to drop everything and go eclipse chasing, especially considering where the path of totality was in 2017. I got the supplies I could get in the time I had, and photographed what I could from the office parking lot. It was only a partial eclipse from Grand Rapids MI, but for being a first timer, I think I did alright given my circumstances.
Partial Eclipse Composite from 2017 in Grand Rapids, MI
Since that day, I had the date of the next total eclipse on my calendar: April 8, 2024. The path of totality I knew would be within driving distance from my home in Michigan, so I planned ahead, booked a hotel, and then waited anxiously for the day to arrive. For this trip, I brought my Aunt along with me, as we like to do these trips together, and she had a particular location she wanted to see along with taking a chance to see the total eclipse.
For this trip, I didn’t want to bank the adventure on what would happen within that 2-3 hour period of the eclipse and have it potentially be a bust, so I planned a full weekend to travel to the state of New York, hopefully capture the eclipse in totality, and then do what I love to do and capture beautiful landscapes for the rest of the trip. It ultimately became a good reset for me and my photography. As many of my readers know, 2024 was a rather lackluster winter for us in Michigan, 2 decent weeks of good winter landscapes in January, and then a very prolonged period of no snow and landscapes that screamed of that ugly period between the seasons. So needless to say I was in quite a rut with my photography and not having the motivation to get out. So this trip of chasing waterfalls and the eclipse was very much needed to reignite that spark in me to chase adventure.
For my faithful readers, I have a lot of wonderful photos to show off for you, and of course, you may have already seen my eclipse shots on my Facebook since I surely wasn’t going to let the day go by without showing off what I did at the time it was relevant. For this blog, the trip spanned from April 5 - April 9, 2024, so in presenting this trip in order of time, the eclipse shots and stories will appear at the end of this blog. I hope you will read the stories and view the photos of my landscape excursions from this weekend, but if you’re only here for the eclipse shots, keep on scrolling to the end.
But with that, let’s get into it and relive my weekend adventure to New York!
If you are interested in a print of any of the images in this blog, check out my pricing for standard print sizes, and contact me to place an order or receive a quote for special printing requests.
Day 1: Driving from Michigan to New York
So this part of the story will be a little boring, as we devoted the day simply for driving to our hotel. The day started off great, clear skies, not a lot of traffic, but then as we got into the Cleveland, OH area, we soon encountered rainy, and even a little bit of snowy weather the closer we got to Dunkirk, NY where we booked our hotel. Needless to say, the weather had a major impact on my mood and anxiety leading up to the eclipse. With it came lots of conversations about what type of clouds would be a problem for viewing the eclipse, and which types would be okay if we had to have some.
By the time we got to NY, we almost called it a day as it was a gray and gloomy day in Dunkirk. But since we still haven’t had dinner and needed to refill the gas in the car, we did take a short drive to attend to those needs and also see the lighthouse in the town. Unfortunately, the site closed at 4pm, so we had no chance of getting there during open hours with our long drive that day. I was able to get this shot of the lighthouse through the locked fence. It isn’t the best shot, and I had to remove a lot of ugly/distracting elements with Photoshop that I normally would have shot around, but it’s a little bit of filler for the trip.
Day 2: An Adventure to the Finger Lakes
Now let us really get into the landscape adventures of the trip. We got and early start to the day in order to drive to the Finger Lakes area of New York, with the goal of visiting Watkin’s Glen State Park and photograph waterfalls.
The day started with a drive through the Alleghany Mountains. It was a cloudy morning, which admittedly had me a little nervous with the goal we had for Monday. I mainly needed it on the day of the eclipse, but I would have liked it throughout the trip for the peace of mind. Needless to say, I was quite anxious through the entirety of this weekend.
As we drove through the mountains, I would say that this morning was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever done on a photo trip. Obviously these mountains are hard to compare to the snow capped giants of Alaska, but with the smooth rounded mountains covered in pine trees, and the low hanging clouds drifting throughout the valleys, it was just magical.
We thought about stopping and capturing some of these views, but unfortunately the highway did not have a lot of rest stops (or text stops as they were called in New York), so we didn’t get much before the clouds lifted that we could photograph safely.
As we got closer to the lakes, the sky began to clear, and by the time we got there, it was a gorgeous mix of blue sky and white puffy clouds. That made me feel a little better for the eclipse prospects, but also made for some great skies as we began exploring the area.
We got there a little early before the state park was officially open, so we started off at Aunt Sarah’s Falls and Eagle Cliff Falls to kill some time, not that we needed much of a reason outside of timing to visit these awesome waterfalls. Aunt Sarah’s Falls was very prominent along one of the main roads in the area, so it was hard to miss. Eagle Cliff falls was a bit more sketchy as a portion of the trail was closed due to high waters, but I captured what I could, and was satisfied with what I got.
After that, we got a quick lunch and then made our way to Watkins Glen State Park. Unfortunately, the Gorge Trail, which contains the iconic sights that I often see on Facebook that attracted me to this place, was closed. It was too early in the season, and the area was too hazardous with high waters. But fortunately, the rim trails were still open, so with a little driving and scouting, we found our way to a trail to walk. So we didn’t leave empty handed from this location, and it leaves that urge in the back of my mind to revisit this place again, at a time when the world is a little more green and the Gorge Trail is open and safe.
The next big stop I wanted to make in this area was to Taughaunnock Falls one finger over in the area of the lakes. This is a special waterfall in the state. While it doesn’t have as much water flowing through it as Niagara Falls does, it does have the distinction of being the tallest waterfall in New York state at about 215 feet tall. The height alone inspired me to check this out.
Image Title: Taughannock Overlook
When we were finished here, we decided to end the day checking out Ithaca and the waterfall that is within the city limits. Now, after having experienced it, my introverted traveler mindset tells me that I don’t need to visit Ithaca again, sorry to the people of Ithaca, but driving through your city was stressful to me, too many cars and people. But I did capture this beautiful shot of your waterfall, so I’ll let my woes of driving through the area slide.
After finishing up at the waterfall and grabbing some dinner in town, we called it a day and made our way back to the hotel, enjoying a blindingly bright drive towards the sunset back through the Alleghany mountains.
Day 3: Rochester and Letchworth State Park
For this day, we actually did something a little different compared to my usually photography trips. But first, on that way to that activity, we made one stop along the way.
Another location that I’ve seen on Facebook repeatedly the past few years was Eternal Flames Falls. This waterfall has a natural gas leak that comes from a small inset in the rocks the waterfall cascades over, and the gas can be lit aflame, pairing together two of the most powerful forces of nature together into a scene of wonder and awe . This site was only an hour away from the hotel and on my bucket list for a little over a year now, so you know I had to make a stop. The hike was a bit of a clamber across the creek back and forth, with some careful foot placement when climbing over rocks and under fallen trees, but the end destination was everything I hoped for (and I didn’t even have to use my emergency torch to light the flame).
Eternal Flame Falls (Panoramic)
With that marked off the bucket list, we continued our journey to Rochester, NY. We weren’t going there to do photography, instead, we went there to visit the George Eastman Museum, and for those of you who don’t know, he was the founder of Eastman Kodak, and responsible for making photography more accessible to the general public. I dont typically go to museums on my trips, but this one was right up my alley as a photographer.
For this stop, I didn’t do a lot of serious photography, mainly just snapshots with my iPhone. The museum was split into two sections, a gallery that displayed lots of old/historic cameras and also the works of some famous photographers, many of which I studied in college (including Ansel Adams); and the second half of the museum took you through his house. That was my favorite part of the museum: seeing the old victorian style decorations in the house, learning about the man and the way he lived, and seeing some of his actual possessions on display, it was quite fascinating.
I took tons of photos of the displays throughout the museum, I’ll share a few of them here, but not all of them since some of them are pictures of photos and truly just touristy snapshots.
These 12 images below are not for sale, as they are just lazy, tourist snapshots with my phone, also I wouldn’t want to profit off of museum displays.
When we were finished at the museum, we visited the gift shop before leaving, where I picked up my T-Shirt for the trip. The museum had shirts made for the event they were holding to view the eclipse, so I felt that was fitting for me as a photographer going on an eclipse trip. I may not have viewed the eclipse from the museum, but the design of the shirt was far better suited to a photographer compared to the ones on Amazon for the eclipse.
After that, we next went to the location that my Aunt had on her bucket list, and after she told me about it a few month’s back, I thought “why wouldn’t we go there?” From my Google research of Letchworth State Park, it looked like I could get some epic shots from there, and boy did we! The park itself was incredible in itself, but with the sunny weather we had that day, we walked into a gold mine of rainbows bursting forth from the waterfalls thanks to the unobscured face of the sun! If for whatever reason I don’t make it back to this place in the future, I’m extremely happy that we had the conditions that we had!
Letchworth Big Bend
Letchworth Canyons
Lower Falls
Middle Falls
Upper Falls
Rainbow Rising
It was hard for us to call it a day at the park, but eventually we knew the sun would start setting, so we made our way back to the hotel before it got too dark. And with one more night of restless sleep, the big day was upon us.
Eclipse Day!!!
So here is where the plans I had in place to photograph the eclipse went right out the window.
My original plan months before the trip was to book a hotel in the path of totality, then in the morning visit Niagara Falls for the sake of filling in the morning’s activities, and then drive to a less crowded area to view the eclipse. I knew there was a chance there’d be clouds and those plans might need to change in the moment, any they changed drastically. In the week before the trip, the forecasts were projecting clouds in the area. I had hoped that it would clear up, but alas the only clear days in the area were the two days before the eclipse.
So with a check in to the weather channel, we canceled the potential visit to Niagara, and instead planned a trip to Marion, Ohio. That area was projected to have less cloud cover, so I Googled “Eclipse viewing areas in Marion, OH”, and one of the first results was from a church that was having a viewing party where you could buy a spot in their parking lot for $10, and instead of calling it a ticket, they called it a tithe. Without too much thought, I bought a ticket for a parking spot, and we got on the road.
The start of the drive was a bit nerve wracking, as all along Lake Erie from Dunkirk, NY to Cleveland, OH, the clouds were thick. But as we skirted the edge of Cleveland and headed southwest to Marion, the skies cleared. We had some thin, wispy clouds in the sky, but that was clear enough to view the eclipse with the solar glasses and filters. 4 hours and 260 miles after leaving the hotel in the morning, we arrived at the church with about an hour to prepare for the eclipse.
Once we were set up for the eclipse, all the anxiety I was feeling with the worry of missing the eclipse just melted away. The church put on a good party as well, with treats, goodies, and glasses to keep everyone fed and safe when viewing the eclipse. I even had a fellow photographer (and now a new friend) parked next to me, so we passed the time talking shop until the moment of totality.
Throughout the course of the eclipse, I shot around 460 images capturing the progression of the eclipse, from beginning, thru totality, to the end where the moon fully passed by the sun. I wouldn’t flood this blog with hundreds of photos, many of which would look very similar to the one before. Instead I made a few composite images where I showed the overall progression a few different ways, and then a few of my favorites during the point of totality that highlights something specific. Also for one of the shots, I made a composite that would show off more of the moon and stars in the sky. While shots like this are possible in camera, I was too excited to think things thru and didn’t capture it directly, but I put that composite together with other photos I took in the past for an artistic take on the event of a lifetime.
When the event was officially over, we made the drive back to the hotel. Had we slowed down and thought things thru, we could have checked out of the hotel early then drove home from Marion, but we didn’t and left our clothes at the hotel, so it was time for another 4 hour drive back to the hotel. With a 8 hour round trip drive of over 500 miles, we got to see and photograph the celestial event, and it was totally worth it! On top of that, when we got back to the hotel and had breakfast in the morning, we heard lots of chatter indicating that the clouds never lifted and everyone in that area of New York missed out on the eclipse, so the decision to go to Ohio was definitely the right move.
The next day, we checked out of the hotel and said goodbye to New York. With another 8 hours of driving to make it back home, we didn’t stop for any photography along the way, we just had a leisurely drive home and enjoyed the euphoria of another successful photo excursion.
If you are interested in a print of any of the images in this blog, check out my pricing for standard print sizes, and contact me to place an order or receive a quote for special printing requests.