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***
“One minute till totality.”
That’s when the error flashes on the camera screen—Card No. 2 Full. But the card isn’t full; it isn’t even half full. I flick my right thumb twice, switching the camera off and then on again. It’s the old IT trick, the just-reboot-it technique. The error flashes again, which is the precise moment my entire body goes numb.
Over a week of planning. Over an hour of driving. Over a working day's worth of research. Over a fist full of dollars for a particular lens. All that investment for three black minutes, and all of it is at risk.
The sun darkens. The shadows soften. Birds still. We stand on liminal ground.
***
Ancient people believed things about eclipses. The Chinese believed that during an eclipse, a great star dragon attacked and consumed the sun. The indigenous people of Togo and Benin taught that during an eclipse, the sun and moon were locked in celestial battle. In India, some thought eclipses were the product of an ancient demon attacking the sun. Some cultures turned to sacrifices to appease the gods during an eclipse, and if the movie Apocalypto is true, heads rolled during some of those sacrifices. According to one source,
Ojibwa and Cree peoples have a story that a boy (or sometimes dwarf) named Tcikabis sought revenge on the Sun for burning him. Despite the protestations of his sister, he caught the Sun in a snare, causing an eclipse. Various animals tried to release the Sun from the trap, but only the lowly mouse could chew through the ropes and set the Sun back on its path.1
Throughout recorded history, eclipses were omens, and those three minutes of darkness were terror. But always, the sun was reborn. Always, the light—the sustainer of life—resurrected. Always, the people rejoiced at the passing of the darkness.
***
“Thirty seconds to totality!”
I turn to Brian, my friend and photographer who I've joined in Paris, Arkansas to document this event. There is only time to demand, not explain.
“Card!”
He unzips the soft mini-binder and hands me a fresh memory card. I open the side hatch, remove the old card, and slide it between my lips like a cigarette. New card in, I turn the camera on.
Card No. 2 Full.
Panic creeps up the back of my neck, up my scalp. This camera has become a very expensive brick.
“15 seconds!”
Everything goes silent, except the ringing in my ears.
***
Some things are not replicable. The morning, this morning, which is now and never again. The neon green of spring shoots rising in a river valley field. Yellow clover heads bending in waves as the wind sweeps across the fallow field. Fawn dancing in the setting sun. Every moment is a passing miracle, but some moments are more fleeting, more miraculous than others.
On the Front lawn in Paris, Arkansas, I feel this more-miraculous moment passing. It is slipping away, and it won’t return for another twenty-one years. I’ll be sixty-seven years old in 2045, assuming mankind doesn’t burn the world down between now and then. Assuming some madman in the Middle East doesn’t push the little red button. Assuming the Russians sober up. Assuming China and America don’t go fisticuffs over a small South Pacific island owned by neither. That's a mountain of assumptions, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about humans, it’s this: We burn assumptions to the ground.
This is the thing about the insanity of humans—we have the power to blot out the sun, maybe forever. And we’ll do it for less than a shot glass of power.
***
“Ten. Nine. Eight…”
I’ve already reached into my trunk and pulled the backup camera body from my bag while Brian busies himself removing the Fuji X-H2 off the 500mm lens. This is a time for stoicism, for pushing back panic. I slap the new body on the lens, find the black-hole-sun as the countdown reaches One.
Deep breath. Focus. Fire.
I have three minutes and a bottomless card. I remind myself—I only need one shot.
But Where did those high cirrus clouds come from?
The clouds move across the frame, throwing focus. The camera struggles to latch on to the ring of fire surrounding the moon.
I rip through shots when the camera finds its subject matter, wondering whether my settings are right. Will I capture the majesty of this moment—the death of the sun, the prominences peaking out from behind the moon, the re-emergence of the day?
It is a wedding without a rehearsal, a dry run that is live, an improvisation. For three minutes, I speak with the sun, and she responds.
Sound returns, and over my right shoulder, I hear a child.
“IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD!”
His mother shoots back in her Arkansas drawl, “Hush, son. Do you want a whoop’n during the eclipse?” She says it with the passion of a woman willing to make a god-appeasing sacrifice. Some things are baked into our DNA.
Just then, the sun peeks from behind the moon. This is the moment of crowning, of pushing, of the moon birthing the sun. It's the last capturable image, and one second more risks burning the camera's sensor. I slap the lens cap back on, and just like that, the moment is over.
What is that feeling in my fingertips, my forearms, the center of my body? Electricity? A body-bound earthquake or tsunami? I can't name it, but I have the simultaneous urge to kiss someone and barf.
Erin—the daughter-in-law of Deacon Tom who owns this Arkansas River Valley observation site—makes her way to the tripod, her face reborn. “Why am I Crying?” she asks, which is when I noticed the deep wells of water pooling in my own eyes.
The farm elders still stand in the field, staring skyward, now donning solar glasses. They marvel at the rebirth of the sun, just as their ancestors did. This may be the last eclipse they will see, and they savor it as they might a fine cut of Parisian (Arkansas, not France) meat. Deacon Tom will be in his nineties if he lives to the next eclipse. The odds say he’ll view that event from his own celestial seat.
What world does he contemplate? What truth? What does his body say? I’m not clairvoyant, but maybe it is this: “Everything is miracle, deep magic, holy sacrament. Everything can be swallowed and reborn. Everything is a sign of resurrection.”
How many words to describe a thing? Erin continues to bend my ear with her reflections about creation and the First Mover and the wonders of heaven—all of which are beautiful—but I barely hear her. I am lost in my own moment, remembering my wedding day, the way the doors parted and Amber appeared in her white dress. The way she overshadowed everything as she parted the sea of people. The way she drew gratefulness from me as women have drawn water from wells for millennia. That moment—that Sacramental moment—is forever burned into my retina. Amber’s revelation is the single most transcendent experience of my life. But excluding that day, and perhaps the birth of my four sons, this moment of totality eclipses every other beauty.
***
Brian steps into my frame.
“Tell me you got that.”
I take the camera from the tripod, walk to the side, and scroll through the images. Brian looks over my shoulder, and I find it: The Shot.
“Dude!” It’s an all-encompassing statement, a Gen-X declaration. I turn to him and we give each other the most genuine high-five I’ve given in my forty-six years of living.
“We got it,” I said.
Together, we howled like wolves.
Support the Work: Order a Print
Meet Brian Hirschy, my shooting partner for the eclipse. Brian loves his mocha.
Brian and I invested in a bit of equipment to capture this event, particularly a 500mm zoom. Today, we’re selling prints to help defray the costs. If you’d like to help support our efforts to document our place—Arkansas—consider ordering your copy by VISITING THIS SITE and clicking the “Buy” button.
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The Observationalist
In the spring of 2023, I began exploring the concept of visual language by creating a book of photos, poems, and short essays entitled The Observationalist. All proceeds are reinvested in the equipment I need to pursue more ideas like this. You can preview The Observationalist by following this link or clicking on the image below.
If you’ve enjoyed this post…
https://www.britannica.com/list/the-sun-was-eaten-6-ways-cultures-have-explained-eclipses
Capturing the sun indeed captured so many of our hearts. Thanks for sharing the story behind these magnificent photos.
Stunning shots, beautiful words. I cried too.