Chasing Totality: Shooting the Solar Eclipse from Port de Sóller

The solar eclipse 2026, what en event! This coincided with a family holiday to Port de Sóller, which just so happened to sit within the path of totality, with a clear westward sightline out over the sea, it had everything I needed on paper: a low sun angle, meaning the eclipse would be happening almost on the horizon, and just shy of 100 seconds of totality to work with once it arrived.

Unlike many photographers all around the world, I hadn’t spent months planning my shot, researching the dynamics and hiring big lenses. This trip was about some family time first and getting some eclipse images came second.

So I took a couple of lenses and did a quick recce on our first evening, which happened to be the night before the eclipse. The town was full of eclipse chasers doing the same thing, I bumped into a lovely couple from the US and we agreed to meet up the following day.

For me, the following day was spent basking in the Mallorcan sun on a beach as droves of eclipse chasers walked by to get their spot for the eclipse, which was scheduled around sunset that evening. So I grabbed my kit, bid my loved ones a fond farewell and headed straight for the supermarket where I bought myself a four pack of cold, Spanish beers! Having ticked the cliche Englishman box, I then made my way uphill to the pre agreed spot, passing groups of ecplise chasers, tourists and locals all lining the streets. My US friends had been there since 10am, in a Mallorcan heatwave!

We all settled in as the ecplise started. The family WhatsApp group started buzzing as they were all down on the beach watching. Drones and helicopters were flying around and the whole of Mallorca dialled in to the event. The partial eclipse was looking great and I was primed for the total eclipse to hit right between the two peninsulas of Port de Soller.

I spend a huge part of my working life watching weather forecasts, holding back up dates, prepping for uncertainty — being based in the North of England, hoping for "perfect" conditions is simply a way of life. So arriving somewhere known for near-constant blue skies and spectacular sunsets, and slowly watching cloud drift across just as totality was about to begin, felt like a particularly cruel joke. Disappointed doesn't quite cover it. However, one rule I always stand by is to keep the camera out in the event of the ‘what if?’ scenario. So we waited. As the cloud came over, some people started to walk off and to coin a phrase, “they think it’s all over”. Well actually, it wasn’t. The cloud began to clear and the crescent sun appeared in full sunset red, backlighting the aforementioned cloud, which then gave me the window that I needed.

At this point, two more photographers joined our little tribe (slightly out of breath, as they had relocated from a different position lower down the hill). Their energy added to the atmosphere and we all shot images and watched as the partially eclipsed sun, set into the sea, lifting the atmosphere in the port.

There's also the crowd itself, which I think is easy to overlook when you're focused entirely on the sky. Watching a few hundred strangers share a single moment of collective disappointment — and then, almost immediately, collective good humour about it — is its own kind of story. I jumped between lenses, grabbing images of both crowd and eclipse.

The atmosphere was incredible. People shouting, drums down on the beach and the bats came out as it all went dark. We watched as the crescent set into the sea, between the two silhouetted peninsulas. We exchanged contact details, grabbed a few new instagram followers and headed back off to our holiday lives. Maybe no totality but still a once in a lifetime experience.