Totality or Bust: To the eclipse and back
This is a non-technical piece highlighting some photos and my experience of the recent total eclipse. I’ll have a more in-depth and technical look at what it took to get the eclipse photos soon.
The sun and the eclipse

10 miles north of John Day, OR the sun is omnipresent. It’s 89°F and windless. It’s a perfectly cloudless day and the only abnormality is my anticipation of the events to come.

The moon first begins to block the sun. It’s imperceptible, except through eclipse glasses or a camera.
Into the eclipse

Nearly an hour after the moon hits the sun, I feel the first hints of change. An unnaturally cool breeze hits me. The moon continues to eat away at the disk of the sun.
For the next 15–20 minutes, things change faster and faster. The cool breeze turns into a mid-day chill. Soon, it starts to look like the first twinge of evening as daylight fades. The previously silent trees rustle with wind as I hear excited voices from the people camped across the road.
Totality

My memory of totality is an old stop motion film — I think adrenaline is partially responsible for that. Michael is yelling “It’s starting, it’s starting!”… I’m mashing keys on my laptop… I’m pulling focus and repositioning the camera… it feels bizarrely cold…
It’s both dusk and dawn 360° around me. There’s a black, black-hole-black, glitch-in-the-matrix-black orb hanging in the sky. It looks so much larger than it should.
Two minutes and seven seconds. It’s no time at all. They say you shouldn’t try to photograph an eclipse during your first experience. They’re probably right…
A mid-day sunrise

And just like that, someone turned the day back on. I must have been looking down as the moon started to let the sun shine because when my eyes flicked up I saw the briefest flash of a diamond ring before I put my eclipse glasses back on.
Now that it’s bright and sunny again, the normality feel weird. There are birds singing their morning songs. What feels like a brisk morning turns to mid-day sun in a matter of minutes.
It takes me a while to realize it’s all finally over. It was an incredible experience and I start to think of the next time I can see this again…
Getting there and back + extras
The road in and out of totality was predictably crowded, but National Parks and friendly towns helped break up our journey.





This was my first Medium post! Please feel free to leave feedback or questions. I’d also be happy to share full resolution photos if anyone is interested.