Eugène Atget is one of my favorite photographers. Read more about him here if you don’t know of him or are familiar with his work. He was famous for his photography during an eclipse but not for photographing the eclipse itself. Eugène Atget decided to forgo photographing the rare astronomical eclipse in Paris in 1912 and instead performed the unthinkable. He turned the camera to the crowd bearing witness!
It’s as if Eugène Atget knew that a hundred or so years into the future there would photo after photo of the eclipse one looking technologically superior to the other. But humanity’s response to the event could be frozen in time and capture in an unrehearsed, authentic, and genuine manner. Henri Cartier-Bresson a photographer known for photographing the decisive moment, published Images à la Sauvette in 1952, but it was Eugène Atget who turned the camera to the human condition.
For those of you able to view the eclipse on April 8th, 2024 you know now of the decisive moment when diamond rings band around the eclipse and the moon completely shrouds the sun for a brief moment of luminescent brilliance. For those of you who have not witnessed the moment as I had, you must! Below were my captures.
I spent the weekend documenting guests from all around the world descending to my home to view the eclipse. Documenting the moment was almost just as rewarding as I feel Atget would have anticipated in 1912.
People will be referring to these pictures 300 years from now when the next eclipse passes through this area again