Eclipse
That’s it. That’s the money shot, the one image displayed repeatedly with various foreground and background details. This image is the 3.5 minutes of cosmic glory you’ve been told is the coming of the end times; the devil made incarnate, the…oh, it’s the stuff and schlock of fairytales and nonsense. I can easily spend hours on what an eclipse isn’t over and above the moments that it is and bore you with the details.
A few friends of mine asked me about my experience shooting the eclipse. The net result is, as you see above, with about 400 more pictures I’ve got to sit down and cull through, each having its usefulness or not to the story of the eclipse. I’m certainly not one to wax poetic about how my image is the best of what I’ve seen because it’s genuinely not. Many others are more gifted than I am, and they have provided their slice of this celestial history in ways I can only marvel at.
In the grand scheme of things, an eclipse is a personal journey of technological exploration (should you choose to go that route) of people and places. It’s a heady mixture of everything that makes us human: curiosity, conversations, and the like. It revolves around a celestial body, which is incidental, like a comet, meteor shower, and so forth, and also has these same primal connections at its foundation. No, an eclipse, rare as it may be, is nothing more than a call to community and, as such, an excellent site to behold.
My day yesterday started at 4 am with an alarm, a quick shower, a grab of the camera bag, and the desire to get on the road before most of the traffic started. I had a destination in mind: St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where I’d be in the band of totality but not too far away from the eventual exodus home. Two hours of driving, a coffee, some gas, and a port-o-potty later, I found myself there earlier than I had hoped, as most of the town was starting to wake up in preparation for the day ahead. One of the town commerce employees noted that they were expecting thousands of people during the day, and that, dear reader, should’ve been a warning sign for what was to come.
I decided to push on, then, having looked at Google Maps and determined that an airport would make for a good landing spot (pun intended). Clear site lines, decent visibility, and parking of some shape or another generally result in a great place to put your gear down and sit for a spell. In my case, I was staring down the barrel of eight or so hours until totality, so bathrooms also needed to factor in. I headed towards Northeast Kingdom International Airport in Newport, Vermont, and, less than 30 minutes later, was nestled in their parking lot, waiting.
At this point, I’ll diverge from most in my eclipse storytelling. For me, the presence of people at any event is cause for celebration. In these moments, the stories, histories, and presence of diverse backgrounds provide an almost overwhelming canvas upon which memories can be placed. From the older generations of wizened solar and astro photographers to the excitement of the new generation, knee-high and fueled by Skittles and youth, each has its role and place within the foundation of what community is.
This community is composed of young and old, technologists, observers, rich, poor, and curious. This is us, embodied in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere Vermont, waiting for the sky to turn pink, the moon to blot the sun out for the briefest moments, and having the time of our celestially insignificant lives. You’ve heard me repeat it ad-naseum for years at this point. Still, I’ll repeat it here again: the event is less important than the people, the technology less important than curiosity, and the destination less important than the journey. Once we recognize the richness of our humanity, perhaps we’ll realize that all our vainglorious puffery and entitlement have done more to sever our connectedness than anything else. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll get back to the heart of what matters: loving each other.
May it ever be so.
