Below is my contribution to the multitude of photos of the 2017 Solar Eclipse. The point of totality would be occurring in northern Georgia around 2:38 PM, or right in the middle of my normal commute to work. So on this day, I headed to work early so I could have my camera ready when the time arrived.

I had no idea how I was going to actually get any pics of the event considering I've got an older fixed-lens camera with no other support equipment like filters or a tripod. And my technical knowledge of photography is limited to begin with. That made photographing the event one giant guess. I figured I would make it up as I went along.

I owe a big thank you to Larry for supplying me with a pair of cardboard eclipse glasses. They worked very well, not for my eyes, but for the camera lens. Holding the glasses against the lens seemed to produce decent quality pics that give a good idea of what the whole experience was like. You won't see me in National Geographic. But you get the idea.

The photo seen above was taken at 2:19 PM, with the point of totality still about 20 minutes away. Holding the glasses in front of the camera lens produced a decent picture.

I took 146 pics of the event. Of that number, 65 are what I would describe as "usable" and presented herein. And a few of them are actually "decent."

I discovered that passing clouds also worked well as a UV filter.

The hardest part of the whole adventure was trying to keep the camera steady. Using the top of one of the gas pumps at the fuel island seemed to work better than anything else I tried.

Here is where I discovered just how well the passing clouds worked as a filter.

That doesn't mean everything went smoothly. I still had a lot of trouble with light reflections.

But when everything came together, I got a decent picture.

The point of totality is roughly 9 minutes away at this point.

Watching the solar eclipse.

Well, most of us were watching the eclipse.

2:23 PM - The visible part of the sun is getting smaller.

Most of my pics were taken at my camera's maximum 35x optical zoom while holding the eclipse glasses in front of the lens.

At full 35x optical zoom.

My camera has a 35x optical zoom and can also add 4x digital zoom on top of that. The picture starts to get unstable at that point. But when everything works, the picture is actually ok.

The biggest problem I had was the fact that the glasses weren't big enough to cover the entire lens. The resulting reflections sometimes produced a cool effect.

It did get noticeably darker when the point of totality arrived.

A few minutes past totality.

The hardest part of taking pics of the event was trying to keep the reflections at bay. The eclipse glasses didn't cover the camera lens completely. This is what I saw most of the time when trying to deal with the reflections. While a lousy picture of the actual event, the overall effect was pretty cool.

Adding some digital zoom.

This is at the full 35x optical zoom with the maximum 4x digital addition for a total of 140x zoom.

Not bad overall, given the fact that I'm shooting with a 5-year old point-'n-shoot camera.

More issues with light reflections.

Not bad.