Meet Wenatchee native, Brendan Morrison – a photographer, designer, and videographer.  I asked Brendan to share his recent journey to Idaho to see the Ecilpse in the path of totality. After a long drive home on Monday, he’s created this piece for the Wenatchee Naturalist.  Enjoy!

Here is my main photo that I took for the eclipse.

I took these shots over the full two-and-one-half hour sequence of the eclipse and then stitched them all together to make the final photo.

This is the view we had from our eclipse spot.

It was located in the Payette National Forest just above the Middle Fork Payette River about an hour or so north of Boise,ID. We camped along the Middle Fork Payette River the night before and then woke up early the next morning and moved up to our spot.

 

From the time the moon had covered the sun about halfway, up until totality, the temperature around us began to drop dramatically. Before the eclipse, I was baking in the sun and had to move into the shade, but when totality hit I was actually a bit chilled. Overall it was probably a temperature drop of close to 20 degrees. One of the other very noticeable things was the darkening of the sky and the increase in contrast in the shadows. Everything seemed to become very defined visually which you can hopefully see in this photo. When totality hit we had total darkness for about 2 full minutes. I can honestly say it was one of the most unique and surreal experiences in my life. To be able to look up at the sun during totality and see the corona shooting our from around the moon was unlike anything I’ve experienced before.

Another shot of our eclipse viewing set up. 

 

In the days leading up to the eclipse we had been hearing horror stories of the traffic, but on our drive up to our spot we didn’t hit even the slightest bit of traffic. Even funnier was when we were chatting with the folks down the road from us in the national forest, they too said they did not hit any traffic even as they drove out of Boise on the morning of the eclipse. We finally ended up hitting traffic as we left our spot in the national forest and tried to drive home.

This photo was taken along the Banks Loman Road which runs along the Payette River. It took us two hours to drive 4 miles. When we finally got out of the canyon on to highway 55 north, we drove by 18 miles of backed up traffic trying to drive south into Boise, and there was likely much more that we didn’t see. I consider myself very lucky to have gotten through the whole eclipse extravaganza and to have only had to sit in two hours of traffic.

 

  Born and raised in the rain shadow of the Central Washington Cascades, Brendan Morrison has always held a deep appreciation for the natural beauty surrounding his home. From sweeping shrubland plateaus to snow-covered granite peaks, Brendan enjoys photographing moments of adventure, awe, and tranquility as people interact with wild areas. With each image, Brendan hopes to connect his audience to the wonders in their backyards while doing so through a lens which best captures his own personal connection to the areas he visits. Brendan is a passionate outdoorsman and design student at Western Washington University. He is 22 years old.

Explore more of Brendan’s photography at brendanmorrison.myportfolio.com or his Instagram page at www.instagram.com/expeditionsandtuition