Photographer chooses eclipse experience over photographing it

Timothy, a photographer from St Louis, Missouri, plans to watch the total solar eclipse from Látrabjarg in Iceland with his girlfriend, but says he will not photograph it, mbl.is reports.

The couple will spend six days in Iceland before travelling to Ireland for his sister’s wedding.

“I brought an entire bag of Polaroid film costing more than 500 dollars, or 61,530 Icelandic krónur, but I do not know which focal length is needed to get a good photograph of the total eclipse. So I am not going to photograph it. I will focus on the experience instead,” Timothy told mbl.is.

He said the two most recent total solar eclipses in the United States passed over his home state of Missouri. He watched the one in 2017 and was struck by the experience.

“I saw it and thought to myself: ‘My goodness, this is amazing.’ Then I was living in Vienna when the next one took place. I decided that since I had missed it, I would go to the next total eclipse I could reach. Then this opportunity came up and I took it.”

Timothy chose Iceland because he is travelling to his sister’s wedding in Ireland and Icelandair offered him a free stopover.

“Iceland is also just such a beautiful place that it was an obvious choice,” he said.