In the coming weeks, we release a weekly video from our talk event titled Talks on Everyday Imaging vol. 2: The Self-Centred and the Networked held on February 13–14, 2025, at The Photographers' Gallery, London. The next lecture available to watch is Nadia Bozak’s one titled Where Did the Sun Go? Ways of seeing, photographing, and reflecting upon a solar eclipse. Watch it below!

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This talk explores the experience of collectively watching and photographing the total solar eclipse that passed over a band of North America, from Mexico to my part of eastern North America, on April 8, 2024. The much-hyped experience compelled seasoned eclipse-chasers and the average citizen who dwelled in the eclipse’s path to become excited about astronomy, solar physics, and the possibilities and limits of watching and photographing the eclipse itself. From school children fashioning pin-hole cameras to safely view the eclipse to public libraries distributing free eclipse glasses, those who were embroiled in the excitement were thinking about the human eye and the power of the sun to damage it, as well as the best way to capture an eclipse-themed selfie on our smartphone. Thus, the North American eclipse of April 2024 was not only a collective viewing experience, it was an exercise in mass photography, with each image capturing a unique vantage point of the Sun’s corona as the moon passed between Sun and Earth. And, because the eclipse was so widely photographed, the event bears witness to what is arguably over-consumption of the image, particularly as the amount of energy needed to supply “the cloud” itself, where our trillion digital images are housed, negatively contributes to climate change. Of course, a discussion of energy, climate change, and a heating planet leads us back to the spark of this talk: the Sun, its power, and its complex relationship to our planet, Earth.

The featured image of this article and the YouTube video is: Kupfer, Matthew. Still image from “Solar Eclipse: Journey to the Path of Totality,” within “If You Live in Ottawa and Want to See a Total Eclipse, Head for the Border,” CBC.ca, 2 Apr. 2024, Link. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.

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You can watch all lectures from Talks on Everyday Imaging Vol. 2: The Self-Centred and the Networked on this YouTube playlist. (The recordings of the lectures are published weekly starting March 13, 2025.)

Conference Conveners:
Róza Tekla Szilágyi – Director of Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography, Endre Cserna – Head of programming at Eidolon Centre for Everyday Photography, Sam Mercer – Producer of the Digital Programme at The Photographers' Gallery, Luisa Ulyett – Curator of Talks and Events at The Photographers' Gallery

Event Concept: Róza Tekla Szilágyi, Endre Cserna
Video: Zsuzsi Simon, Benedek Bognár, Márton Schneider
Music: Áron Lörinczi
Design: L2 Studio

The lectures took place on 13th and 14th of February, 2025 at The Photographers' Gallery, London.

You can find the original event description of 'Talks on Everyday Imaging vol. 2: The Self-Centred and the Networked' here.

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Image credits of the digital presentation:

^{Slide 1: “The April 8, 2024 Solar Eclipse,”Éspace pour la vie Montréal, https://espacepourlavie.ca/en/april-8-2024-solar-eclipse. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.}

^{Slide 2: Rourke, Matt. Photograph of Niagara Falls eclipse watchers. “Total Solar Eclipse Wows North America, Clouds Part Just in Time for Most” by Marcia Dunn, Associated Press, 8 Apr. 2024. Niagara-on-the-Lake Local,  https://www.notllocal.com/world-news/total-solar-eclipse-wows-north-america-clouds-part-just-in-time-for-most-8569220. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.}

^{Slide 3: Chidley, David. Photograph of person using eclipse glasses to protect a smartphone.} 

^{“How to Photograph the Eclipse Without Frying Your Phone” by Rhianna Schmunk, 20 Mar. 2024. CBC.ca,  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/total-solar-eclipse-phone-photos-2024-1.7149062. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.}

^{Slide 4: Digital reproduction of  William H. Fox Talbot’s “Entrance Gate, Abbotsford,” Getty Museum, https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/1040FV. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.} 

^{Slide 5: Digital reproduction of Léon Fizeau and Hippolyte Foucault’s first photograph of the Sun, European Space Agency, https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2004/03/First_photo_of_the_Sun_1845. Accessed 12 Feb 2025.} 

^{Slide 6: Levin, Boaz and Esther Ruelfs, editors. Mining Photography: The Ecological Footprint of Imaging Production. Spector Books, 2023.} 

^{Slide 7: “Participate in The Eclipse MegaMovie,” Eclipse MegaMovie, https://eclipsemegamovie.org/team/volunteers. Accessed 12 Feb 2025.} 

^{Slide 8: “2024: Where Do Solar Jets Go?” Eclipse MegaMovie, https://eclipsemegamovie.org. Accessed 12 Feb 2025.} 

<sup>Slide 9: Kupfer, Matthew. Still image from “Solar Eclipse: Journey to the Path of Totality” within “If You Live in Ottawa and Want to See a Total Eclipse, Head for the Border,” by Matthew Kupfer, 2 Apr. 2024. CBC.ca, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/total-eclipse-april-8-travel-1.7158181. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.

Slide 10: “Cellphone: Unseen Connections,” Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, https://naturalhistory.si.edu/exhibits/cellphone-unseen-connections. Accessed 12 Feb. 2025.</sup>