Gary Price was ready, no doubt about that. Price, a physician in Guilford, started planning to photograph the recent total eclipse of the sun last February. He bought necessary filters he needed for his camera before they sold out. Ditto for the eclipse glasses. He had them well before the price doubled, then tripled, and then became all but unattainable. He downloaded software he needed for his laptop so the computer would control the camera and he wouldn’t miss anything.

“Totality lasts only about 2 ½ minutes and you would never get good photographs if you changed things manually,” he explained.

Then he practiced, out in his backyard in Madison at night photographing the moon, and during the day taking pictures of the sun. That allowed him to make precise adjustments to his camera, still necessary despite computer guidance.

That was just the beginning. Price viewed the eclipse on Siler Bald, a mountain in the Nantahala National Forest near Asheville, North Carolina. Along with his wife and his daughter, who lives in North Carolina, Price hiked up a mile and half to the top, using the most direct trail. A more circuitous trail ascends in 2 ½ miles, but distance counted. Price was carrying 35 pounds worth of equipment.

“I didn’t walk fast,” he admitted, although he and his wife hike nearly every weekend with a local group.

Price set up his tripod in a clearing a bit below the top of the mountain. Not only was the top too crowded, but also his spot was ideal because it gave a view unobstructed by trees. Still, things could have gone very wrong very quickly but for his daughter’s dog. It alerted him to the fact that he had first set up the camera over a ground hornets’ nest.

Price photographed with a Nikon D500 with a 400-millimeter lens. To that he added a teleconverter, which intensified the magnification to that of an 850-millimeter lens. He could have bought the larger lens, but he said it is very heavy and he didn’t need to add more weight to his pack. Price got an unexpected surprise from two of the people on the North Carolina mountain top who asked about his camera equipment: They came from Killingworth.

Price’s eclipse photographs are now on display on a moving computer screen in his office.

Still, despite all the preparations, there was one problem Price could not control: clouds. (He said some enthusiasts checked the statistical probability for clear skies before deciding where to station themselves to see the eclipse.) On Siler Bald, at the outset, the sky wasn’t clear, but the clouds dissipated in time for excellent viewing.

During the first hour and a half of the eclipse, as the moon moved over the sun, Price said things began to get a bit “ho-hum,” but he was unprepared for the drama of totality. As the light changed to darkness, the crowd cheered.

“It’s like someone flipped a switch and the sun went away. Seeing the sun as a black disc in the sky is amazing,” he said. “The sky was a very deep blue, like twilight.”

In the darkness, the stars were visible just as they would be on a clear night. Looking off to the mountains to his east as totality passed, Price saw what he described as a surreal view of shades of purple and orange.

“It was just like the sun rise,” he said.

Price began photography as a serious hobby some six years ago, concentrating on pictures of wildlife. He has done two trips to Alaska, photographing whales, eagles, and grizzly bears. One picture on display at his office shows a grizzly’s head emerging above the water line. It is a close-up and Price added that it was not simply a telephoto lens trick.

“We were close,” he remembered.

On an African trip to Botswana, his favorite photographs were the ones he took of lions. He would like to go to Rwanda someday to photograph gorillas, but he also has his sights on the next total eclipse that will be visible in the United States. That will come in seven years and will be observable over the eastern parts of the country.

Price is already making contacts in preparation.