The photography behind Earthrise

They went to take photographs of the moon. Then they looked up.

More info and sources at bottom.

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This video started initially when I was interested in photography history and NASA. As I did research though, I kinda narrowed on Earthrise - I was fascinated by how such a famous photo could be such an unplanned, nearly accidental thing. Even if you don’t buy my argument, I hope you enjoy seeing some of these amazing photos and learning about some of the cool experiments.

Sources:
Here’s a NASA 101 that’s very digestible. It focuses on still photography during Apollo and helped me get my footing.


This is where all the photos are sourced from.

It’s surprisingly complicated to find the right or best copies of the photo, and it ends up being a bit of a judgment call. This site provides what they say are unedited scans in really high resolution (as well as copies in more manageable sizes and with some editing). I felt like I didn’t really color correct the images I used “right,” but I preferred having duller images to ones that had been super edited in ways I couldn’t judge. Anyway, your mileage may vary - check it out for yourself!

The Apollo Flight Journal:

This is your best place to check quotes, chronology, and get all the little details on events, as well as clarifications on confusing stuff. So I think this is a fun place to nerd out.

Here’s a version of the Earthrise recreation NASA did (a few copies all over).


Here’s Jennifer Levasseur’s dissertation. This really is what gave me my footing. For a while, I thought I’d need to figure out how to include her in it because it felt like a straight up adaptation. But as I read on, there were a lot of places I diverged and the scope of her thing was a lot bigger.

However, you’ll see where I got the vibe of this video and why I focused primarily on Hasselblad and Ansco Autoset.

Very influential and worth a read!


Here’s that color patch photography paper:


Here’s a very thorough overview of NASA photography, by NASA c.1972.


In general, this is where I got all the other documents you see in the video. A quick search should help you find them but if you can’t, please feel free to email me. This is just such a gold mine though, nobody talks about a lot of the stuff in here.


OK, I can’t resist one more specific link here — nice synopsis of Apollo 8 photography specifically. This is what I’m talking about - they get really niche! I just had to figure out how to keep it detailed and still tell a story.


Oh, here’s John Glenn’s memoir!

I won’t pretend I read it though - I was just mining for camera facts! He actually calls the Ansco Autoset a Minolta, which I think is wrong because Minolta bought them later (Smithsonian calls it an Autoset). Anyway, the dude is like the last American hero, so I wasn’t gonna call him out on that in the video, hence the elision in the quote.

By: Phil Edwards
Title: The photography behind Earthrise
Sourced From: www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7KR1nCA4Js

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How To

Tips for Beginners: How To Take Amazing Drone Pictures

Tips to capture great drone shots

1. Make sure you have enough space to fly your drone safely. Keep it clear of trees and buildings.
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