Do not stop on roads, block emergency access, enter private property or park on fragile vegetation.

Keep your camera setup simple enough that it does not consume the entire experience.

And when totality begins, look up.

Take one or two photographs if you must, but remember that professional photographers will produce thousands of technically perfect eclipse images.

Nobody else can experience your minute for you.

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Final Thoughts

I have written about eclipses before, but this one feels entirely different because it is coming through the landscape where I live.

The shadow will reach the Westfjords, sweep across Snæfellsnes, darken Reykjavík, move across Reykjanes and race onward across the Atlantic toward Spain.

Some people will watch from Greenland.

Some will stand in the far north of Russia.

Some will gather beneath the low evening Sun in Spain.

A tiny number may catch the edge of totality in Portugal.

Millions more across Europe, Canada, the northern United States and northwestern Africa will watch the Sun become a crescent through eclipse glasses.

And here in Iceland, assuming the clouds are kind, we will stand outside in the late afternoon while the familiar world changes colour, the temperature drops and the Sun disappears.

I still have not decided exactly where I will be.

Perhaps Snæfellsnes.

Perhaps Reykjanes.

Perhaps Reykjavík, because there is something almost impossible about watching the first total solar eclipse visible from this city since 1433 without even leaving home.

Wherever I end up, I know what I will do when totality arrives.

I will stop checking the forecast.

I will lower the camera.

I will look at the black Sun and its corona with my own eyes.

And for one minute, I will be completely quiet.