04/09/2024
Totality wasn’t what I expected. Truth be told, I don’t know what I expected. From a visual standpoint, it was about what I thought it would be, but it had a far more significant impact on me than I thought it would.
For weeks I’d tried to talk family and friends into joining me, but nobody from my crowd in Cedar Rapids could make it. Justin, a long time friend of mine from Minnesota, talked his family into going, and we planned for weeks in advance to meet in Illinois. I scoured Google Earth for locations that seemed scenic, far enough from major cities to avoid the inevitable traffic, deep inside the path and relatively close. I settled on Bonnie’s Public Access Area at Rend Lake, a few miles south of the town of Mt. Vernon, Illinois. It seemed ideal - a small, quiet spit of land with a boat launch extending into a large lake with a view facing south - the eclipse would appear high in the sky to the south with totality beginning at 2:03 PM CST, lasting for several minutes.
I left home around 7 AM on the 8th to start the 6 hour drive. Justin and his family had gone as far south as Springfield the day prior, and we arranged to meet at the spot around 1:15. The drive down was quiet, I spent most of it wondering how close it would be to my expectations, went over the photos I wanted to get in my head and thought about ways to get them.
Near the end of the drive, my thoughts wandered to the friends and family back in Iowa who didn’t make it down, and I’ll admit I felt a pang of sadness that whatever this experience was going to be wouldn’t have any of them in it.
I reached the lakeside just as the eclipse was beginning, quickly set up a tripod and got my camera mounted. Justin and his family had been there for around an hour before me. His dad had found a few inexpensive solar filters meant specifically for cameras, and after realizing my double stack of 4 stop neutral density filters wasn’t going to cut it for the early stages of the eclipse, I pulled those off entirely and relied heavily on one of them for around an hour.
In the last minutes before totality, the temperature dropped roughly 20-30 degrees, the wind died out completely and the air filled with the sounds of anxious wildlife. Shadows cast on the ground grew sharper, and daylight appeared as though it was being seen through sunglasses. As the sun began to shift from a crescent to a sliver, the sky to the southwest took on a dark, hazy blue shade, growing darker as the shadow raced towards us. The C- shaped sliver of light behind the moon collapsed into itself, leaving a solitary luminescent bead on the northern edge, taking on the appearance of a diamond atop a ring of light.
And then it was gone - stars shone through the afternoon twilight, fading in visibility towards a horizon bearing a sunset all around. Ahead of us, the lake took on an otherworldly glow - reflecting sunset colors from every direction. Overhead, the new moon reflected a barely discernible blue light, earthshine returning to its source, faintly revealing the familiar craters, mountains and valleys.
Around the lunar horizon, the raging cosmic inferno of the solar corona revealed itself spectacularly, its superheated tendrils of plasma plainly visible as cloudy white light. Small points of red light glittered around the edges - the mountainous terrain of the moon allowing brief looks at prominent solar flares normally obscured by the overwhelming light of our local star.
Time felt like it slowed to a crawl. Around us, the few strangers that had found themselves in the same location excitedly pointed out their observations - some laughed, some sat in quiet contemplation - but all were utterly entranced by what we had come to see. For a few minutes, nothing else mattered. The stresses of day to day life drifted into obscurity - for a while, the universe demanded our undivided attention, and we acquiesced its request. It was a grand, humbling moment in which the world showed us that we were all part of something far bigger than ourselves.
After a few minutes, the process reversed itself. On the southeast horizon of the moon, a blinding diamond of white light burst through, sending us all scrambling for our glasses. The mid-day stars disappeared, the sunset colors faded away, and a sharp, dim daylight returned. Slowly, the world returned to normal. Birds settled down, the wind picked back up and the temperature rose back to a pleasant 77 degrees. The crowds sat in silence for a moment before we all began to pack up and head out. After a stop for lunch as a group, I parted ways with Justin and his family and started the 6 hour drive back home.
I drove the first hour in silence, thinking about what I’d just seen. During lunch, our group had checked to see where the next North American eclipse would be visible. In 2044, the path will only reach parts of western Canada and into northern Montana before the eclipse ends entirely. After 2044, it will be 2078 before an event like this is visible on the US east coast. It’s unlikely that I will live to see an event like this again.
My thoughts drifted to family and friends who have passed away - some of them I know would have loved to see something like this, and I felt a lump in my throat remembering how encouraging some of them had been towards my interest in photography. I wondered if they were proud of the effort I’d made to get the images you see below, and I thanked them for being part of my motivation to go.
I thought then of the many who are still with us but will undoubtedly be gone before 2044 - many of them are no longer mobile enough to have gone to totality this year, as much as they’d have liked to. Some have never experienced totality. We know now they never will.
I recalled that 6 days before the east coast annular eclipse on June 10th, 2021, I had come within an inch of ending my own life and robbing myself of the opportunity to be a part of what I’d seen today. I reflected on the years of recovery since, and I was thankful that I hadn’t succeeded.
I thought of the many who wanted to go and were physically able but couldn’t fund their trips or secure time away from work to witness this once in a lifetime event, and I felt gratitude for my position in life. I recognized that I had been very fortunate to be in a position in life that afforded me the opportunity to be there for this. I hope for those of you that couldn’t go, these photos can inspire some of the same sense of awe I felt while shooting them.
I thought of the many who could have gone but elected not to, and I felt a mix of frustration and empathetic sadness for them - 10 years from now I wonder how many of them will look back on today and be glad they stayed home. They made that choice, the chance has come and gone, and it will not come again.
South of Peoria, Illinois, I saw the sun set over the interstate, and I kept an eye on the horizon, scanning for the spots in the evening sky that most resembled the beautiful color palettes of the 360 degree twilight I’d seen earlier. I made a conscious effort to burn the mental image of that moment deep into my mind. As the sky went dark again, I knew I had seen something truly special that day - and I was glad to be alive.
It is days like April 8th - moments like the total solar eclipse over Rend Lake - that bring me the most joy in life. It is these experiences which make the day to day grind of a working life worth it. It is these opportunities that I find most worth the expense to pursue - moments that are made all that much better with good people to experience them with. It is these moments that remind me most sincerely that, as George Mallory said, “We do not live and eat to make money, we eat and make money so that we may live.”
April 8th is behind us, and an opportunity to experience what it brought us will not likely come again in our lifetimes, but for any of you reading this I urge you to ask yourself what experiences you can bring yourself to pursue that would instill the same sense of awe, the same appreciation for the beauty of the world we live in, and I would urge you to make the choice to pursue those experiences.
The past is unchanging and the future is uncertain - live immediately.
