Umbra

For the 2019 solar eclipse, I traveled to Chile with a specific vision: rather than capturing the familiar close-up views of the corona, I wanted to document the shadow itself as it swept across the landscape. This project required two years of planning: securing sponsors, assembling a team, and mapping multiple potential locations to capture the eclipse low on the horizon over the Pacific Ocean.

The resulting time-lapse reveals the eclipse’s true scale, showing the moon’s shadow racing across the sky and transforming the entire field of view rather than focusing on the eclipse alone. This was an intentional choice about perspective, sometimes you have to view the big picture to understand the phenomenon. The wide field of view captures something rarely seen: the eclipse as a human event, not just an astronomical one.

Standing on a remote Chilean mountaintop, watching this cosmic event unfold, brought me closer to what astronauts describe as the Overview Effect than any other experience. As Anne Dillard wrote, “The second before the sun went out we saw a wall of dark shadow come speeding at us. We no sooner saw it than it was upon us, like thunder.” This project captures that wall of shadow, that moment when the familiar world transforms into something alien and sublime.

Umbra documents that rare moment when we can witness our planet’s place in the cosmic order, when the machinery of the solar system becomes briefly, beautifully visible.