Birders

brings up a question I've stood in front of for several years. I wonder how much have I missed over the past 40 or so years when my attention was on operating a camera to capture an image. You've preserved the magic of that singular moment in your memory. Your gazing at the birds and them gazing back at you couldn't be preserved in an image. I wonder if your memory of that moment would have been as vivid if you'd been operating a camera.

On August 21, 2017, my son and I traveled to a spot near the North Carolina-Tennessee border to view a total eclipse of the sun. I was excited to capture images of totality and the corona. I had fashioned a solar lens filter using a lens from a pair of eclipse glasses and a cardboard tube. Here's a shot I took minutes before totality:

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I'd placed a towel over my head and the camera body to prevent light from entering the viewfinder. I was completely identified with operating the camera and getting some spectacular shots. At totality, my son said, "What are you doing? You're missing it!" I'm grateful that he was able to bring me to my senses. I threw off the towel and saw not only the solar corona and the disc of the moon covering the sun, but spectral rippling waves of light on the ground, and the dome of the sky in twilight in the afternoon. I didn't get my shot of totality, but their were probably millions of eclipse shots taken the day, most of them with better images than I could have gotten with my entry-level camera and $150 lens.

Thanks for sharing your encounter with the Cedar Waxwings and for enduring my rambling.