How we got the photo: Capturing the 2024 solar eclipse over Dallas’ Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge

Editor’s note: The Dallas Morning News published many memorable photographs of the 2024 total solar eclipse in Dallas, but one image by Staff Photographer Tom Fox felt so immediately iconic that we devoted the entire front page of our April 9, 2024, print and digital editions to it. Here, we’ve asked Fox to describe what it took to get that photograph. For more of our stories on the eclipse, visit dallasnews.com/eclipse.

Photographing an eclipse takes preparation. Lots of preparation.

Having a set time and place for the event makes it both easier and more difficult. The easy part is you know where the moon is going to be in the sky and when. There are several apps that can assist with this. I use The Photographer’s Ephemeris. But nothing compares to standing in the spot where the picture needs to be taken.

For the four-minute window, I made a couple of trips to the Trinity River bottom, including the day before, at 1:40 p.m.

This is not an exclusive idea, as there were several other photographers who had the same idea, evidenced by little markers in the weedy area. I placed my stake in the ground so I could re-find my spot. On Monday, I befriended some other photographers who were setting up as I anchored my tripod with a bungee cord and dog-leash stake. I set the camera horizontally to capture the cables leading to the apex of the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge and the total eclipse above it. Knowing the shape of our front page, I left enough room to crop it vertically.

Now for the hard part: What is the exposure in totality? Do I have enough depth of field to ensure that it appears sharp? For that, I leaned on my colleague Smiley Pool, who’s photographed a pair of solar eclipses. Taking into account his moon exposures and the uncertainty of the bridge’s lights turning on, I settled on auto-exposing the image at a high ISO, an f-stop of 11 and Auto White Balance (since the bridge is white). To crib my exposure, I shot the image on RAW, so I could tweak any mistakes later.

I say all this because I wasn’t planning to actually be at the camera to make any adjustments during the eclipse. I was assigned to photograph the scene on the adjacent Ron Kirk Pedestrian Bridge, and I would have to activate the stationary camera remotely at the time of totality. With gracious help from a newfound friend, we coordinated a test shot. Good to go.

As visitors started filing onto the bridge, I was joined by our reporter María Ramos Pacheco and security guard Nick Patel as I set up a 600 mm lens on a large-sensor, mirrorless camera to capture all of the detail. About every 10 to 12 minutes, depending on the clouds, I made photos of the transition going in and out of totality using a solar filter over the end of the lens.

Patel was a godsend. Not only for watching over all of my gear and setups, but for helping me keep my sanity as I desperately searched for the solar filters I had purposely placed for safekeeping in my wagon.

In between the stages of the eclipse, I would venture out for a few minutes trying to capture feature photos of mesmerized people viewing the eclipse with downtown in the distance. Nothing could have prepared me for what most of us have never experienced: a sudden loss of light in the middle of the day. To the east, it appeared as if the sun was rising again behind downtown Dallas; to the west, it appeared to have set. In between, I was scrambling to capture the totality with the long lens, people’s reaction to it with the wider lens, and the remote camera photographing “Large Marge.”

Somehow it all came out, even the two wide-angle GoPro cameras I mounted on the bridge for a time-lapse.