Photo Impact: Earthrise

Can you tell which photo of the Earth became the famous one that impacted global consciousness?..... 













retrieved from https://www.google.com
/search?q=mickey+mouse+earth+photo





John Hanson
LIS 471
Photo Impact                                     


Before I divulge that I dig into the archives of memory for the images of the earth, that have impacted my consciousness like bursts of solar energy.  I see the image on Earth Day posters and fliers, Whole Earth Catalogs, banners, magazines, newspapers and television.  The memory is not only visual but also associated with sounds and scents, drum circles and patchouli and global consciousness and all that could be accomplished balanced with a dose of despairing thoughts, i.e. why is there so much war, hatred, grid-locked road rage, nuclear fixations, etc and back to meditating on the blue earth mandala and then google goggling at a vast array of images of earth taken from space beginning with photos taken by a 35mm camera from  

 View of Earth from a camera on V-2 #13, launched October 24, 1946.

White Sands Missile Range/Applied Physics Laboratory 

retrieved from http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/FEATURE-FirstPhoto.html 

an altitude of 65 miles, riding a V-2 rocket, courtesy of German engineering, launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in 1946 to a high-res image using VIIRS imaging technology snapped by NASA in 2012.  The rocket fell back to Earth, obliterating the camera but not the film encased in a steel cassette.

Here is a panoramic view of Earth taken by the V-2 shot method.

  retrieved from http://media.airspacemag.com/images/V2-panorama.jpg

Here is a photo of a V-2 launch from White Sands.

retrieved from http://www.airspacemag.com/space-exploration/FEATURE-FirstPhoto.html#

This is the first image ever shot by humans of the whole Earth.  Most likely, it was photographed by astronaut William Anders, in charge of photographing during the Apollo 8 mission, 1968.

retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8
Photo by Apollo 8 crew, most likely William Anders
1968

 

Before William Anders took the iconic "Earthrise" photo in 70 mm color film,  mission commander Frank Borman took a black-and-white photograph, framing the shot as if the Earth is rising like a Moonrise and they were standing on the moon.  Both photos were taken with a Hasselblad camera, modified for use in cramped quarters.

retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8}

^Untitled

^{Photo by Frank Borman}

¹⁹⁶⁸

In Poole (2008), Frank Borman recalled "I happened to glance out of one of the still-clear windows just at the moment the earth appeared over the lunar horizon. It was the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life, one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white, but not the earth" (p. 2).

Moments after Borman took the black and white photo, Anders loaded color film and took this shot from the perspective of traveling in orbit about the Moon’s equator, which is what they were doing.

retrieved from http://www.abc.net.au/science/moon/earthrise.htm

Earthrise

Photo by William Anders

1968  

In Poole (2008), William Anders recalled that  "we’d spent all our time on Earth training about how to study the moon, how to go to the moon; it was very lunar orientated. And yet when I looked up and saw the Earth coming up on this very stark, beat up lunar horizon, an Earth that was the only color that we could see, a very fragile looking Earth, a very delicate looking Earth, I was immediately almost overcome by the thought that

here we came all this way to the moon, and yet the most signifi-

cant thing we’re seeing is our own home planet, the Earth" (p. 2).

 

Listen to NASA audiotape 
of Anders and Borman taking the shots.

Anders color photo was then framed like a Moonrise when used in print, such as the Life magazine cover.

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8}

Earthrise

Photo by William Anders

1968 

retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_Photographs_that_Changed_the_World

Issued in 2003.

Although "Earthrise" was picked as one of the most influential photos, here's another famous shot of the Earth that holds its own. The "Blue Marble" shot represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. The picture was taken on December 7, 1972, as the Apollo 17 crew left Earth’s orbit for the moon. With the sun at their backs, the crew had a perfectly lit view of the blue planet.

retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble

NASA credits the entire Apollo 17 crew.

Photo taken 1972.

Interesting note from the readings:  Ritzenthaler (2006) points out that copyright doesn't protect "works created by U.S. government employees during their work hours" (p . 309). So, have a field day or should I say Earth day.

References

Poole, R.  (2008).  Earthrise.  New Haven [Conn.]; London – Yale University Press.

Ritzenthaler, Vogt-O'Connor, Zinkham, Carnell, & Peterson (2006).  Photographs:        Archival Care and Management. Chicago: Society of American Archivists.