I saw many stories about the solar eclipse that was scheduled to hit North America on April 8, 2024, in articles from my RSS and ATOM feed collection. There were too many articles so I tuned them out and thus was not too on top of what was going on – including when the eclipse would eclipse. I became aware during the early afternoon of April 8 that the eclipse was probably coming soon on account of the people in Brooklyn Bridge Park wearing those silly looking glasses that may or may not work depending on where one purchased them. I learned the eclipse was coming at 3:25 P.M., so I later that day took the opportunity to conduct some New Leaf Journal photo journalism in Brooklyn Heights.

First we have the shadow of a tree on the sidewalk at 3:23 PM:

Photograph of the shadow of a tree without leaves being cast onto a sidewalk in Brooklyn Heights a few minutes before the solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.

This was a couple of minutes before the actual eclipse as I understood it to be happening. I just thought it was a nice shadow.

This next photo is the Sun at 3:24.

Photograph of the sun from behind the trees with light splaying outward shortly before the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

They are clearly lying to you when they say that staring into the Sun is not safe. Look at this photo. Tell me that does not look safe. Of course I was not actually staring at the Sun. For one, I only had normal sunglasses – not the eclipse sunglasses (real or knockoff). For two, I would not stare at the Sun anyway because that would be dumb and I try to not do dumb things. Instead, I took the photo over my shoulder after having gauged where the Sun was.

I had been told to look for crescent-shaped shadows caused by eclipse light flitting through the leaves of the trees. Fortunately, I happened to be standing near a leafy tree (unlike the tree in the first photo) at 3:25 – which I understood to be eclipse time.

Crescent shadows between leaves being cast on Brooklyn Heights sidewalk during solar eclipse of April 8, 2024.

I suppose those are the crescent shadows that were advertised.

Now let us skip ahead to 3:27 and look at the beams of light landing on parked vehicles across the street.

Photograph from Brooklyn Heights sidewalk during solar eclipse of April 8, 2024. Two bikes are chained to a tree-pit in the foreground. In the background, three pillars of light land on three vehicles across the street.
You can see both shadow-casting trees. The one down the block cast the shadows in the first photo while the one with the bikes cast the crescent-shaped shadows in the previous photo.

I can confirm there were no dramatic light beams before 3:25 so this appears to also be a fun eclipse phenomenon.

At 3:28, I decided to prove for the second time that staring at the Sun is not dangerous – all a lie.

Photograph of the sun from behind the trees with light splaying outward during the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

Again, I didn’t actually stare at the Sun. I took the photo over my shoulder. I will note that while the weird lighting effects were obvious – it never became too dark where I took these photos.

I leave you with one photo for the road, also from 3:28.

Photograph of the sun from behind the trees with light splaying outward after the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

It was interesting to capture a few unambitious eclipse scene photos with my Pixel 3a XL camera while not not staring at the Sun.

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