High South Creative, LLC

High South Creative, LLC High South Creative is a graphic design and photography firm based in Boone, North Carolina.

Total Lunar Blood Moon Eclipse on March 13-14, 2025.Overall duration: 6 hr., 3 min.Totality of Blood Moon: 66 min.480mmI...
04/14/2025

Total Lunar Blood Moon Eclipse on March 13-14, 2025.
Overall duration: 6 hr., 3 min.
Totality of Blood Moon: 66 min.
480mm
I used the same grid I built in Photoshop from last year’s solar eclipse composite.

Last night’s full moon in the High Country of North Carolina was bright with clear skies. But, last month’s full blood moon was a special one, being one of two total lunar eclipses in the year of 2025. A “blood moon” refers to the reddish or orange hue the Moon can take on during a total lunar eclipse. This phenomenon happens because sunlight, while blocked from directly reaching the Moon, is filtered through Earth’s atmosphere, and the long wavelengths of red and orange light are scattered towards the Moon, causing it to appear reddish. The other total lunar eclipse this year happens September 7-8, but will only be visible in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia.

The easy part of capturing this was getting to my destination to shoot the eclipse – my back deck. The hard part was staying awake until the end of the eclipse. I eventually started setting a 15 minute timer to get up from sleeping on the couch, then go out and re-center the moon in the viewfinder and take another capture. This process went on for me the last couple hours until the last photo (1/250th sec., f/9, ISO 100, 480mm) I took at 6:15am, when things went back to standard universal procedure.

The day after capturing lunar eclipses throughout all the phases are never that quite productive for the astro photographer!

One year ago today was one of the most amazing experiences anyone within the Zone of Totality has ever experienced. At l...
04/08/2025

One year ago today was one of the most amazing experiences anyone within the Zone of Totality has ever experienced. At least it was for me. Our family is hooked on witnessing Total Solar Eclipses. Who’s planning on the next one on August 2026 in Spain or Iceland?

I never posted the composites I created showing the entire phases of the eclipse, so here they are! Yes, I haven’t posted anything all year, but I’ve never been busier with such a variety of photography projects and sales, coming up on my 10 year mark of being full-time freelance photographer.
















My images from the Solar Eclipse during the 3 min., 52 sec. of Totality at Clearwater Lake, Mark Twain Nat’l Forest, Pie...
04/13/2024

My images from the Solar Eclipse during the 3 min., 52 sec. of Totality at Clearwater Lake, Mark Twain Nat’l Forest, Piedmont, Missouri. – April 8, 2024. First image is a composite of 3 of the 5 photos I took during totality, others are from a variety of other exposures. While capturing the entire process of the transit, I took 3 bracketed exposures that were two stops apart. Captured on my with a 700mm focal length. The orangish, close up and less detailed photos here are from the .

My most used disc in my bag is the Hex, and recently my friend Rob gave me one with glow plastic and the Eclipse stamp!
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Backstory: After waking up in a remote town in Latin America, our family rode a bus, 2 planes, and drove two hours home, then I finished packing for the family eclipse road trip until 3:00am. Alarm went off at 5:00am to start loading up for the departure, driving all day to our campground destination in Missouri. The biggest challenge of the trip was safely driving the 1300 miles roundtrip with my wife, two teenage daughters, and both of their boyfriends. We caravanned with friends, and met other friends there that we experienced the 2017 eclipse with. It was a collaborative effort!

Seeing a total eclipse is an experience, you don’t just see it, you also feel it. It’s got to be one of the most incredible celestial events a human can witness. A couple of minutes before Totality, I got chill bumps and shed some tears as I knew what was about to happen. I believe it’s a life changing event as it gives you a greater conciseness of the universe. It’s fun to share it with others as the sky gets dark, the temperature drops, and the subdued but luminous light is unlike anything ever seen. Then Totality ends and the transit begins the other half of the eclipse process. I kept shooting, but most people left the lakeshore before it was fully finished, as the end of the eclipse phase is not as exciting as what happens before it. It’s a wrap, things get back to normal and we start the return drive home. So worth it!

Back to reality, and already planning August, 2026 eclipse in Spain! (maybe Iceland). Who’s game?

Eclipses are best with family and friends!
04/12/2024

Eclipses are best with family and friends!

04/12/2024

Totality duration 3 min., 52 sec., at Clearwater Lake, Mark Twain Nat’l Forest, Piedmont, Missouri. April 8, 2024. I posted this on my Instagram: lynnwillis_photography
My first timelapse with the Seestar S50 capturing 479 images through the entire eclipse transit that lasted 1 hr, 17 min. I set the telescope to shoot a still photo every 20 seconds, starting right when we were predicted to have the “first kiss” at 12:39pm which was right on time.
It’s is a bit choppy because I should have had the interval timer set to shoot every 10 sec. instead, and the occasional wind off the lake actually caused the telescope to shake at times. I saw it happening and was cringing, so a wind block would have been helpful.
Backstory about this amazing experience coming soon, along with Totality images and composites from my Nikon Z9.

The great Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was born 100 years ago today, March 3, 1923. Singer, Songwriter, and Flatpicking Guit...
03/04/2023

The great Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson was born 100 years ago today, March 3, 1923. Singer, Songwriter, and Flatpicking Guitarist that was born just east of Boone and blind at an early age, he just loved to play music with everyone. Winner of seven Grammy awards and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Doc was such a kind soul and I was fortunate to have a couple of one-on-one conversations with him over the years. His longtime sweetheart wife, Rosa Lee gave major support to him throughout the decades and passed away (Thanksgiving Day), a few months after Doc died on May 29, 2012.

Some photos I took of him over the years. The last photo of his statue in downtown Boone is from the day he left this Earth. Somehow, I got called to go shoot the statue for the Associated Press as people started to place flowers there. Forty-five minutes after I sent the photos to the AP, the images were being used in various countries and continents around the world, which blew my mind! What a treasure he was.








Beaver Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse from this morning, November 8, 2022.There's nothing like an astronomical event to ...
11/09/2022

Beaver Blood Moon Total Lunar Eclipse from this morning, November 8, 2022.

There's nothing like an astronomical event to get me to post something. It's the "Beaver" moon because it's a full moon in November when beavers start to shelter in their lodge after storing food for the winter (and fur traders would trap during this time), and it's a "Blood Moon" because it gets the reddish-hue during a total eclipse (umbra phase). Our moon is just over 242,000 miles away from precious Mother Earth.

It's amazing how astronomers can predict these major astrological events, compared to it being a surprise for people way back when. The next total lunar eclipse in North America will be March 14, 2025. Get Ready!

1st image: Totality at 6:51am EST; 500mm; 1 sec.; f/5.6, ISO 500.
2nd & 3rd images: 6:21am
4th image: composite of partial eclipse; 5:26am-6:12am















As with many astrological events in the High Country, it can be disappointing to view as there seems to always be a grea...
05/17/2022

As with many astrological events in the High Country, it can be disappointing to view as there seems to always be a great chance of cloud coverage. I only had three brief windows of seconds each to capture last night's Blood Moon lunar eclipse from Valle Crucis Community Park. 500mm lens.
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Looking forward to starting a new, fresh year and leaving this one in the dust!
12/25/2020

Looking forward to starting a new, fresh year and leaving this one in the dust!

What a year... for astrological events, and wrapping it up with The "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn last night...
12/23/2020

What a year... for astrological events, and wrapping it up with The "Great Conjunction" of Jupiter and Saturn last night brings the year to a nice close. Looking Southwest from the summit of Hawksbill Mountain (4.020 ft.), Linville Gorge Wilderness Area, NC. The last time most of the world's population had a favorable view of these two planets coming so close to each other was on March 5, 1226, and on average, they get this close (hundreds of millions of miles apart) around every 375 years.

I wanted my daughters to experience this astrological event, so they came along with layers of clothing and blankets to summit Hawksbill with me. Usually I'm the lone ranger on photoshoots, but they were my assistants and asked me to take the last photo here as a testament to their suffering. It happened to be one of the windiest experiences I've had in the decades of visiting the Linville Gorge, gusts probably 50-60 mph on the summit, having to hold the tripod in place during all long exposures. The wind actually blew over my entire camera/lens/tripod rig at one point and crashed it into the rock slab while I was preparing for a lens change. Miraculously, nothing was broken which I am amazed at! Thanks to the Moon, in and out of the clouds for help with the light painting.
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Photo 1 detail: 1/4 sec., f/5.6, ISO 3200, cropped from 500 mm.

Last night's Halloween Blue Hunter's Moon rising above Hawksbill Mountain in the Linville Gorge as seen from Wiseman's V...
11/02/2020

Last night's Halloween Blue Hunter's Moon rising above Hawksbill Mountain in the Linville Gorge as seen from Wiseman's View.
The second full moon in one month is usually referred to as a Blue Moon. This happens every 2.5 to three years, or "once in a blue moon." The Hunter's Moon refers to the full moon following the Harvest Moon (which was October 1st) – when hunters used moonlight to hunt prey and prepare for winter. A full moon on Halloween across time zones is so rare, it hasn't occurred since 1944. And the time change happened last night during this full moon, what a convergence!

The subsequent photos are long exposures utilizing the moon light and some light painting with my headlamp.

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