…and then it happened
Im not sure why it is, but no matter where I park Jack, no matter how far from where everyone else parked, and no matter how far I have to walk, when I come back there’s always at least one if not more, cars clustered around Jack.
Parked on a random beach, miles out of town and well away from where everyone else had set up, the same thing happened. Setting up my cameras on tripods around the car, and setting my Go Pro up to capture the changes in light and to see if there would be any changes to the waves, we became again, surrounded by other cars wanting to set up right where we was. What can I say, Jack is pretty cool, right?
They were all nice people and it was great to see, a family on one side, a couple on the other also wanting to shoot the big event. We chatted about lenses and cameras, we discussed the brands we were using etc, all that photog kind of talk, and went about recording in our own ways.
In all the excitement I had quite forgotten about my little Go Pro up on top of Jack (trust me it wasn’t the first or last time either), already set up and recording a timelapse.. You can imagine my disappointment to find later that the couple were right in the line of recording for my Go Pro and so I of course managed to record both the changes to the environment, and the next few hours of their activity.
I recorded the changes in my surroundings as a voice memo on my phone. ’11.15am - 15 mins from total eclipse… it’s almost high tide, the air is cooling, light is changing, moving towards late afternoon, sunset-y light, it’s absolutely amazing!!
Then… whump!! Totality hit.OMG!
It was beyond anything I could have imagined. I did not expect that! I was overwhelmed by the whole thing…I felt so tiny, like a blip. Here one minute and gone the next, yet connected to everyone and everything, space, the universe, everything living and everything not. The earth, the sea, the air.
We cheered, we clapped, we whooped and celebrated. I cried.
As soon as totality ended the morning birds started singing, the waves crashed harder and louder.
I was stunned by the waves of emotion that crashed over me during totality. My response was physical and emotional. I had tears pouring down my cheeks. I didn’t know when they started and I couldn’t stop them.
I was almost speechless.
You might have picked up by now I was completely enthralled.
The father of the family behind me came up asking if I caught it on camera and wanting to see what I got. Poor guy, I could barely speak. I couldn’t stop the tears from running down my face, I couldn’t form full sentences. He looked at me with a kind of, ‘oh my god she’s a fruit-loop’ look on his face, and said, ‘that’s ok, I’ll um leave you to it then’, and went back to his family. They rounded the kids up and herded them into the car, and left.
I don’t know how long I sat on the beach for, wanting the peace and solitude to really I guess revel in and imprint as much as possible on the effects I was feeling. I can tell you now, I have never ever experienced anything like that ever in my life.
I eventually left the beach and slowly made my way back to town, stopping on my way. I was still feeling incredibly overwhelmed.
I found it really difficult to articulate the whole experience. I still struggle with it even today.
That night when I stopped to camp for the night I wrote about how I felt, because I was still so enthralled.
“‘I felt so euphoric, so humbled, so blessed to be there and yet I felt like I was meant to be there.
When the eclipse moved into totality it was like a huge WHUMP where the light really dropped and the world stood still. We all started cheering and clapping, I felt like we were all connected during that moment, we were all present in that moment.”
My entry continues…
‘I find it difficult to pick the right words to describe it… profound, joyful, bursting with happiness, bursting with love & an absolute sense of wonder. It was I guess, quite surreal maybe. I really need a thesaurus’
My mission from then was to get a photo of totality. I didn’t even try for this one, I knew it was relatively short at 56 odd seconds and so didn’t want to miss anything by mucking around with camera settings.
So… that brings me to now. I’ve left Jack and Jilly, and Lily all at home in Perth. Im on my way to see the eclipse on the 8th of April. Im heading to Texas. Apparently they’re expecting cloudy skies and maybe some rain, but I’m pretty sure that there’s a chance or more that the clouds will disappear or open up, and we’ll see an amazing solar eclipse, expecting around 4 minutes and 23-26 odd seconds. This time I’ll shoot totality.
Wish me luck and clear skies!!!
#umbraphile #solareclipsechaser #solareclipsetotality #headingtotexas