Fresh from My Darkroom: Eclipse 2015 in Como

This article is a sad description on how an astronomical event so important passed in almost total indifference to most people in my city. This eclipse of happiness, the eclipse of curiosity — this is much more dangerous than the dreaded astronomical phenomenon by ancient people!

Friday, March 20, 2015 in Como. 8:00 a.m. A cloudy morning, the sky is gray. There was no sun, maybe there are no chances to observe the partial solar eclipse (70% coverage) in my city. So I decided to leave my home and go out for grocery shopping. Of course I had hoped for a lightened sky, even temporarily, so I loaded my Olympus 35RC with a roll of Ilford Delta 400 film. I developed this film myself with a fine grain developer (R09 Spezial, another name for the old Rodinal Special).

In the middle of the morning, at around 10:30 a.m., there were some moments of partial thinning of the clouds. For a few minutes the sun, partially covered by the moon, was visible in the sky which was still gray. The shielding of the clouds has allowed me to observe it without the need for protective filters!

Using a 42mm lens, the sliver of sun was visible only with a magnification of the images, a small speck in the gray sky (the following image is a high contrast crop of the previous one).

You might ask me, "Why didn’t you use a 200, 300, or even 500mm telephoto lens? Well, I chose a normal lens because as a street photographer, I was mainly interested in the reaction of the people during this rare astronomical phenomenon! Even if, all in all, I returned home deeply disappointed.

As you can see in this series of photos, some people used their mobile phones to capture the event; I have not seen anyone using an actual camera! Probably the cloudy sky discouraged many amateur photographers who had lost hope on the clearing of the sky. But that’s not the reason for my disappointment after this dark morning.

The event was spend in general indifference in the usual chaotic comings and goings in the city center. Only a few people looked at the sky. A few people, for a city of almost 100,000 inhabitants! Many people seemed a little interested in it, sometimes preferring to watch the windows shop or to continue in their business in the morning. I deliberately avoided to pay too much attention to the composition, preferring to shoot instinctively while I was walking in the old town. I wanted to immortalize the spontaneous behavior of individuals, as that alone says it all. On that day, a phenomenon that isn’t normally part of the daily routine went almost unnoticed! In the streets of my city, you can see a lot of sadness. Although in most of my street photos I always try to represent moments of joy, a recent survey has shown that Como is one of the cities with a lower happiness rate and so much sadness, despite the high per capita wealth.

In recent years, any phenomena that isn’t normally part of the daily routine goes almost unnoticed. For example, even the rare snowfalls that in the days of my childhood were seen with joy (parents were happy to bring their children to make snowballs in the parks) are now viewed almost like a nuisance. They hamper getting to work and are considered a waste of time. From the comments of most of the people they are seen as a waste of time and an obstacle to daily work. For this reason I’ll continue to publish photos of joyful people having fun as often as the opportunity arises. Because every smile is an antidote to the general sadness.

At around 11 a.m. the sun gradually reappeared behind the moon and the clouds further thinned. At this point it was impossible to observe the eclipse with the naked eye, and these nice boys offered their welding masks to the people so they could see it safely. But as you can see, very few people stopped to observe.

“The solar eclipse is a temporary phenomenon. The eclipse of the mind, a phenomenon that never ends.” – Mieczysław Kozłowski

written by sirio174 on 2015-04-05 #lifestyle #street-photography #italy #eclipse #como #requested-post #fresh-from-the-lab