Sun Spots
What had been forecast as a beautiful fall day (and it was on the drive down in the dark at 5am) turned into a fog shrouded morning when I made the image below. We had just enough sun peek through at sunrise to get this and a small patch of blue before things closed up. So it is with weather and photographing outside, but my tale here is not about unexpected weather so much as other truly unexpected events and experiencing the world through sight.
Just after this image was made I started to descend the hill, and because the fog was so thick, you could look directly at the sun. At that moment there were some power lines crossing in front of the sun and what I first thought were two birds sitting. The “birds” however were moving along with the sun and not staying on the power lines. When the sun is so low you can actually see the sun (of course more accurately the earth) move rather quickly.
The nut I am I turned to my client and said, “Do you see those two black spots on the sun?”. The reply was, “no”. And shaking my head I say, “Well I swear I can see two spots on the sun”. Or that was approximately the dialogue. Not two days later I stumbled across this National Geographic article about massive sun spots on the sun, large enough to see with the naked eye.
Sometimes you’ve got to trust what you see! -it is after all our greatest way to perceive our universe.