First to notice something was up were the birds that scattered northeastward. Second, our host’s normally trusting dog Torrey became leery, refusing to don protective goggles.
Torrey the dog is named after the south central Utah community where thousands had converged in order to witness a phenomenon known as an annular solar eclipse, wherein the moon passes in front of the sun, blocking all but the sun’s outer ring. Totality lasts a mere four minutes, which meant I had to act fast—even faster than usual, if I expected to capture the event on what used to be known as film.
Thanks to Donald Trump, I’ve learned that there’s no harm in staring at the sun, provided you squint. However, I didn’t want to damage my new Fujifilm XT4, so I had invested in a variable density filter. Also, I wanted some foreground interest, and so settled upon a whirligig sculpture on the grounds of Paul and Donna’s art studio on the hillside above Grover. The result is a bit weird as there appear to be two suns in the sky, one hidden behind a whirligig vane and the other, partially eclipsed, to the right. I’m thinking it might be an optically induced sun dog, but who knows?
Speaking of dogs, all during the eclipse, Torrey bore her canines and snarled menacingly. I was frightened, but not surprised. Same thing used to happen to my son Alex around this time of year.
