Just got back from watching the eclipse over where my wife works. (That way we only had to buy one viewing setup.) It was, frankly, an awesome experience. By that I mean the original meaning of the word – “extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, apprehension, or fear”. (Not the common meaning where it’s an all-purpose expression of praise and enthusiasm.)
At first, though it was cool to look at (through proper glasses), but it didn’t seem to be much… But as totality approached, even though it wasn’t full totality here, the light grew very noticeably dimmer and the air distinctly chilly. The light was also of a very odd quality, not the same at all as when the light grows dim at dawn or sunset. As a photographer, it was very noticeable… Even the friend who was watching with us noted how spooky it was. It was very easy to see how people of pre-scientific times would be deeply affected.. The world just doesn’t normally change so fast and then spring right back to its former shape as though nothing had happened.
And speaking of friends, this was different from most any other event in my life… It happened in slow motion (over the span of roughly two hours), and so there was time to share the experience over social media. It was… fascinating to read the reactions of friends and family scattered across the country in real-time. And that’s setting aside all the preparations of the last few days and weeks as people bought the required safety gear and set out to travel to see the event.
All in all, I can’t say I experienced some kind of epiphany… but I can’t say the experience left me untouched either. I just can’t clearly express how. Maybe it’s that part of my brain deep beneath the civilized and educated layers reacting. I just don’t know, but felt I had to share.
More mundanely, I caught a number of interesting images such as this one – where the gaps between leaves were acting as little pinholes and projecting an image of the eclipse on the pavement:
It’ll take some post processing work to see if I can make anything of them, but I still found it fascinating.
Anyhow, thanks for taking the time to read this and feel free to share your experiences and thoughts down in comments.
Now, back to the mundane rounds of daily life – errands, housework, and fighting with my now massively overdue Week 5/6 + Midseason Review post. (Three quarters done, having some writer’s block problems on a couple of shows.)
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