It is not often that one can have a ringside seat at event with cosmic proportions yet come away from its witness alive and even unscathed. Okay, by the law of big numbers there were some who stared and so certainly came away scathed. But it wasn’t you. It probably wasn’t me.
But it was a holiday crowd at Loyola Park and some of them must have peeked. While it wasn’t as common as rock concert joints, filtered glasses were being passed around. But I admit the shadow of the tree was my main focus in this photo. And in fact, shadows were my main focus that afternoon.
First of all, there is the dark and smokey quality to the light itself. Much to my surprise, this photo comes close to catching that quality in a kodachrome sort of way. In these partial eclipses, the sky never quite reaches the sunset quality of a total eclipse but it does have a spookiness to it…
…and ordinary shadows change as well. Despite being less illuminated, ordinary shadows often seem unnaturally sharp… like an echo of an alternate universe.
And sometimes the crescent sun is suggested along the edges of the shadow.
And of course there are the trees and bushes that act as natural pinhole cameras.
It was a pleasant way of spending a warm spring afternoon. It wasn’t quite the spectacle or the adventure of a total eclipse in winter’s Winnipeg, Manitoba, back in the 1970s. I’d tell you about that too but I remember only fragments.
Yip Abides 