August 23, 2017

Like many of you, I had the opportunity to witness the awe-inspiring spectacle of the solar eclipse. But I had a dilemma - how do I create a unique image that captures the beauty and wonder of the event? Do I join the hordes making the slog to somewhere I could experience totality? Do I try to zoom in to capture details, as most photographers planned to do? What is it about this event that so completely captivated a nation?

Acknowledging my sometimes contrarian nature, I decided not to join the hordes driving south to Oregon to get into the path of totality. Once that decision was made, I then needed to figure out how to make a compelling image of the event even though I would not experience totality. Here is the result of that effort.

And it wasn’t just the sun itself. Did you see the shadows being cast on the ground during the partial eclipse? Here’s an image created by the partially eclipsed sun being diffracted by small gaps between tree leaves. Tree leaves!! Isn’t that cool??

For many of us it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be shared with friends new and old, focused on what we have in common rather than how we differ. For a moment we were reminded that, above all else, ours is a shared humanity. It was simply wondrous.