Taken on July 29, 1878, Solar Eclipse by canonized landscape photographer Carleton Watkins powerfully, elegantly captures the exact moment the moon completely blocked the sun and cast a surreal shadow over the Earth. Watkins, known for his pioneering work depicting the American West, used this rare event as an opportunity to simultaneously experiment with photographic techniques and record a celestial occurrence. The pieces resulting artistic and technical achievement is as sublime and awe-inspiring as the eclipse itself. Its stunning that then, as now, eclipses humble us all by reminding us of our smallness in a vast and fascinatingly ordered universe.

Eclipses have been documented, celebrated, worshipped, and studied by people since ancient times using a variety of scientific and artistic approaches. The significance of Watkins photograph, aside from its obvious beauty, is that it incorporates so many different facets of observance. The piece was part of a series of images taken by the photographer during this particular eclipse so that astronomers could conduct groundbreaking research into the sun’s corona and solar activity in general.