Eclipse chaser on moonshoot to capture the perfect shot
“It’s probably the closest thing you can get to a religious experience on a schedule” said Vidutis
WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - Mantas Vidutis sees the world through the lens of his camera.
With a swift shutter, he captures parts unknown.
From the depths of the ocean, to the weird and wonderful above.
He’s on a crusade, cataloguing the planet’s palette.
Of all the shots is his collection -
The most elusive is that of the total eclipse.
“You need to have a tripod and you need a fairly long lens so you can get close enough for it to take up enough space in your shot,” said Vidutis, “But if you point the camera lens at the sun, it’ll catch fire.”
Vidutis has been chasing total eclipses for nearly a decade.
It’s taken him across the US, and to the deserts of Argentina.
“It’s probably the closest thing you can get to a religious experience on a schedule” he says.
After a little bit of luck, and a lot of patience, he’s able to capture the perfect frame of this celestial phenomenon.
“When the sun is obscured, you can see the corona it or all of the edges, the flares that are coming off a bit of a big veil” said Vidutis.
Photos like his aren’t just impressive, as Aaron Shanil with the Air and Space museum explains - they offer answers to some of science’s biggest questions.
“Eclipses have proved a lot of what Einstein theorized,” Shanil explains, “gravitational lensing, where gravity sort of lensing light similar to your glasses or contacts, where the light is being bent so that you can see better. And it actually proved sort of the existence of black holes.”
For Vidutis, it’s a passion that just clicks.
“The first one you go to, you’ll go because you think that it’s interesting or someone else will take you. And then it is based at that point, you’ll just essentially want to go to every single one that you can for the rest of your life.”
This is set to be the most viewed eclipse in history - all of the United States is set to experience at least part of it - with 12 million lucky Americans living in the path of totality. The eclipse happens on April 8th.
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