Most of my photos were fairly typical to all of those seen. Starting at the beginning and going through totality, I shot over 100 images. One of these was very different.
I was taking photos every few minutes -- at this instant -- a jet shot out of the shadow and across the Sun. The photo was taken at 2:12pm, about thirty minutes before totality. As soon as I shot this, I turned to show the camera screen review to my husband and son. On the way back to Georgia, I posted a cell shot of the back of the camera to Instagram. Later Monday evening I loaded images from the day to my computer and put this one and a couple others on my Facebook page.
One of my Facebook friends is a reporter with 11Alive. She spotted it and asked if she could share it to the station's Facebook page. I said sure. Many of my other Facebook friends shared it. I received a message from a reporter with a news station (WLTX) in Columbia, SC asking if he could share it.
Sure.
The next morning 11Alive wanted to do a Facebook Live interview about the photo. There were a few comments questioning the authenticity of it. So I did.
It has been fun to have a lot of feedback on my photo. Some of the feedback has been a little.....well......you see what you think.
The following comments are from both news stations' Facebook pages.
"Come on 11Alive, you know this is photoshopped."
" That's fake because the plane couldn't have been flying in front of the eclipse sideway (sic)"
"Fake news. Planes can't fly high enough to get in the eclipse like that."
"It's fake no planes were allowed to fly during the eclipse."
"fake fake fake"
"Whay (sic) kind of plane has a big square on its back. Fake, I think."
"It fake cuz it can't get that close it would burn up."
"fake picture"
"Fake flying sideways, think again."
"Yes this is an old photo, not taken yesterday. This was F, Yahoo, TV News a long time ago."
"I saw this same picture on an eclipse photo search 2 weeks ago. It's actually saved in my phone."
I can (sort of) see how someone thinks the plane is sideways. But remember the time of day, we are in daylight savings time (so subtract one hour). At 1:12pm the Sun is pretty high in the sky. I shot this looking up (through a solar filter) at the belly of the plane flying overhead.
The square on the back....um, engines.....
There were way more positive comments. That was nice!
It does bother me -- just a little -- that someone would accuse me of passing off an old photo as my own or photoshopping it. I know that happens, but I don't do that. It's insulting to have that said about one of my images.
Here is a link to the Facebook Live interview if you are interested.
