Eclipsed
I have been thinking about rebooting this old blog for some time. A week with a total solar eclipse seems as good a time as any. I was free the whole day of the eclipse. I could drive only about two hours north-west of where I live and be just inside the the path of totality – something I have never experienced. I debated making the drive right up to the last minute – it was mostly overcast and the cloud cover looked like it was only heavier the further west I would be traveling. Naturally, I wanted to try to capture the perfect picture of the eclipse – cause why just enjoy a natural phenomena when you can drive yourself crazy. So I hesitated – and I also did not have a filter for my camera or a pair of solar glasses. I was headed back from the mailbox – where the glasses I had ordered at the last minute failed to appear – when I ran into our next-door neighbor who generously shared a set of solar glasses and a camera filter that she had recently received (Thank You Kathy!)
I was starting to run out of excuses. I probably still would not have gone, except there was still one other reason for the journey. My brother died completely unexpectedly about two years ago. Its complicated, but I hadn’t seen him in 20 years. I don’t know exactly what happened to him in those 20 years or in what ways his life had changed, but there was a time when he would not pass up a chance to watch and photograph an eclipse. He was an avid astronomer – building his own telescope and camera filters. The photo above is one he took of a spectacular eclipse in Baja Mexico on July 11, 1991. I don’t know how Frank took this picture, but I am so glad I have it. It was mounted near my computer monitor at work for more than 20 years.
I arrived at a spot on the side of a back road somewhere outside of Boonville, NY last Monday and quickly set up my tripod with ten minutes to spare to experience one minute of totality. I was snapping pictures when the camera view screen went blank. It was now safe to look up at the sun directly, without glasses or filters and I was overwhelmed by the sight of the carona. At that moment, I found myself thinking “this is what you see”. It was as if time and distance had been breached and I was experiencing the eclipse with Frank. And then it was gone.