Nowadays, Chivari mostly covers concerts, but he has dabbled in astrophotography since high school. He couldn’t pass up the 2017 eclipse so close to home. On his way south that August day, as clouds rolled into Carbondale and other parts of the state, he decided to pull off on a side road between Alto Pass and Cobden to set up.

“I might go back to the coordinates I was at that first time because I was by myself, and it was very, very peaceful. And once totality hit, it was very surreal,” he said. “I’ve been telling people it’s like a spiritual event. Because you really do see the wonder of the planet.”

He was fortunately equipped with prior experience after photographing a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical phenomenon, known as the Transit of Venus, in 2012. The next time Venus passes directly between the Earth and the sun, appearing as a small black speck moving across the face of the sun, will be in 2117.

The 2012 transit lasted several hours, while the time of totality for a solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes. But Chivari knows how to adjust for bad lighting and work on the fly from his concert experience. In 2017, he photographed a KISS concert in Aurora on the night of Aug. 20 and left for southern Illinois at 4 a.m. That afternoon, he had just under three minutes and one mission: to capture the eclipse’s totality.

In April, he’ll have a little more time to work with.

“This is four minutes that we’re gonna be getting,” he said. “It’s like a song and a half — it’s what I’m kind of thinking of it as — when really anything can go wrong.”

Chivari said photographing a total eclipse requires specific equipment, and no amount of reading can prepare you to shoot it until you do it yourself. And the scene is so breathtaking it can be distracting.

“You know something really cool is coming, but you just got to be ready for it and keep that emotion … not tamed, but where you can still act in a split second,” he said. “You’re kind of dumbfounded when you see it happen. Because you want to just take it in, but you have to wear those hats of observing it and shooting it and keeping your head on a swivel.”

Suddenly, a shot at the perfect shot is over.

“You feel that temperature come back up, and then you hear the birds come back out,” Chivari said. “And it’s just another day after that.”

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