.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
It is difficult to exaggerate the cultural, political, and scientific achievement of the Apollo 11 mission which landed on the moon on the 20th of July 1969. Every generation was rapt by coverage of the Apollo 11 landing, from Baby Boomers to the Lost Generation, the latter of whom, born in the late 19th century, had seen mankind transition not just from horse and buggy to car, but on from there to spacecraft. Families crowded together to watch the live broadcast from the moon, with Walter Cronkite commentating for 27 out of 30 hours of live broadcast coverage. Children sat crowded together on floors, their parents perched on chairs and couches behind them, all eyes watching the greatest scientific achievement of mankind to date.
It was a sign of hope for the world and signified the triumph of America over the Soviets, with Neil Armstrong taking his 'one small step for man' on behalf of all mankind. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins took seriously their mission as the first men to land on the moon, and their responsibility as the eyes of the world, ensuring to photograph and document their experience.
Alongside their rigorous physical and flight training, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins underwent training as photographers at the test site in Nevada and lava fields in Hawaii. They were to document their landing not just for public interest, but also in the aid of scientific research. The camera they brought with them was a custom-made Hasselblad, built to withstand extreme changes in temperature, and with buttons large enough to be pressed through a moonsuit glove. It was not handheld, but rather attached to the spacesuits. These images are shot without a viewfinder and from the torso. Neil Armstrong proved more adept than Buzz Aldrin at shooting blind, and thus images of Armstrong on the moon are limited. The central image in our trio is one of only two still images of Armstrong on the moon, here seen reflected in Aldrin’s visor. It is the full Hasselblad frame of the most famous image of a man on the Moon. Aldrin later recalled, '[a]s I walked away from the Eagle Lunar Module, Neil said, "Hold it, Buzz." So I stopped and turned around, and then he took what has become known as the "Visor" photo. I like this photo because it captures the moment of a solitary figure against the horizon of the Moon, along with a reflection in my helmet’s visor of our home away from home, the Eagle, and of Neil snapping the photo' (Buzz Aldrin, quoted in Jacobs, p. 63).
The first photo in the trio was part of the scientific element of Armstrong’s photographic responsibility, taken to provide a visual record of the relative density of the surface in a 'soil mechanics test'. After taking his first step on the Moon, which he did not photograph, Armstrong reported (at 109:24:48 GET): 'Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.' Despite the mundanity of the subject of a boot and bootprint, there is a majesty to the image. It is iconic in the cultural imagination because it captures the great achievement of the mission; man’s foot on the moon. Aldrin said later: 'I felt buoyant and full of goose pimples when I stepped down on the surface, I immediately looked down at my feet and became intrigued with the peculiar properties of the lunar dust' (NASA SP-350, p. 11.4).
The final photo of the trio was shot by Michael Collins, the astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module while Armstrong and Aldrin made their moon landing. It shows the Daedalus crater on the far side of the moon, never visible from Earth. Collins recalled, '[w]hen the Sun is shining on the surface at a very shallow angle, the craters cast long shadows and the Moon’s surface seems very inhospitable, forbidding almost. I did not sense any great invitation on the part of the Moon for us to come into its domain,' he said. 'I sensed more almost a hostile place, a scary place.' The desolation of this lonely spot is certainly captured in his photograph. One cannot help but feel, despite Collins’ attestation about the inhospitable feeling of the moon, a sense of triumph in its capture from his lens.
The moon landing was the triumph of innovation, the fulfilment of President Kennedy’s promise, which tragically he did not live to see, to send man to the moon and to bring him safely home again. It was the dream of mankind from the beginning of time, realised to the delight and awe of generations. In these images, the ingenuity of the camera itself meets the ingenuity of human engineers and the bravery of the Apollo crew, whose daring, curiosity, and patriotism drew them to a land where no man had stepped before.
It was a sign of hope for the world and signified the triumph of America over the Soviets, with Neil Armstrong taking his 'one small step for man' on behalf of all mankind. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins took seriously their mission as the first men to land on the moon, and their responsibility as the eyes of the world, ensuring to photograph and document their experience.
Alongside their rigorous physical and flight training, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins underwent training as photographers at the test site in Nevada and lava fields in Hawaii. They were to document their landing not just for public interest, but also in the aid of scientific research. The camera they brought with them was a custom-made Hasselblad, built to withstand extreme changes in temperature, and with buttons large enough to be pressed through a moonsuit glove. It was not handheld, but rather attached to the spacesuits. These images are shot without a viewfinder and from the torso. Neil Armstrong proved more adept than Buzz Aldrin at shooting blind, and thus images of Armstrong on the moon are limited. The central image in our trio is one of only two still images of Armstrong on the moon, here seen reflected in Aldrin’s visor. It is the full Hasselblad frame of the most famous image of a man on the Moon. Aldrin later recalled, '[a]s I walked away from the Eagle Lunar Module, Neil said, "Hold it, Buzz." So I stopped and turned around, and then he took what has become known as the "Visor" photo. I like this photo because it captures the moment of a solitary figure against the horizon of the Moon, along with a reflection in my helmet’s visor of our home away from home, the Eagle, and of Neil snapping the photo' (Buzz Aldrin, quoted in Jacobs, p. 63).
The first photo in the trio was part of the scientific element of Armstrong’s photographic responsibility, taken to provide a visual record of the relative density of the surface in a 'soil mechanics test'. After taking his first step on the Moon, which he did not photograph, Armstrong reported (at 109:24:48 GET): 'Yes, the surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.' Despite the mundanity of the subject of a boot and bootprint, there is a majesty to the image. It is iconic in the cultural imagination because it captures the great achievement of the mission; man’s foot on the moon. Aldrin said later: 'I felt buoyant and full of goose pimples when I stepped down on the surface, I immediately looked down at my feet and became intrigued with the peculiar properties of the lunar dust' (NASA SP-350, p. 11.4).
The final photo of the trio was shot by Michael Collins, the astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module while Armstrong and Aldrin made their moon landing. It shows the Daedalus crater on the far side of the moon, never visible from Earth. Collins recalled, '[w]hen the Sun is shining on the surface at a very shallow angle, the craters cast long shadows and the Moon’s surface seems very inhospitable, forbidding almost. I did not sense any great invitation on the part of the Moon for us to come into its domain,' he said. 'I sensed more almost a hostile place, a scary place.' The desolation of this lonely spot is certainly captured in his photograph. One cannot help but feel, despite Collins’ attestation about the inhospitable feeling of the moon, a sense of triumph in its capture from his lens.
The moon landing was the triumph of innovation, the fulfilment of President Kennedy’s promise, which tragically he did not live to see, to send man to the moon and to bring him safely home again. It was the dream of mankind from the beginning of time, realised to the delight and awe of generations. In these images, the ingenuity of the camera itself meets the ingenuity of human engineers and the bravery of the Apollo crew, whose daring, curiosity, and patriotism drew them to a land where no man had stepped before.