I tried to do both, of course, and to some extent succeeded. After the diamond ring, several bright prominences were visible to the naked eye and Venus was obvious at approximately the 8 o'clock position. I failed to see Bailey's beads again this year, but the shadow bands were clearly visible on white towels placed on the ground and continued for a surprisingly long time. The corona was as bright as I remembered from last year but seemed spikier, all around the sun's disk. I attempted to take a few photos during totality, as well as to observe visually and with binoculars and found that there was too little time even for these simple activities.
Allowance has to be made for the almost overwhelming emotional impact of the event.
The greatest difference for me between this year's event and last year's was in the duration of the diamond ring, which last year seemed to hold for an unbelievable 15 to 20 seconds. This year it was a more typical few seconds only, both at second and third contact. No one was really counting, but I estimate from our position that we saw a few seconds more than two minutes of totality. The skies had co-operated perfectly and remained cloudless until well after totality ended. Our tour members were about equally divided between veteran eclipse chasers and neophytes.