Remembering the Space Age. - Black Vault Radio Network (BVRN)

286 reMeMberING the SpaCe aGe
Shadow of Apollo astronaut Alan Bean at Surveyor III lunar landing site: 1969. (NASA)
the infuence of 19th century landscape photography may extend beyond
photography itself. Consider the work of the mid-20th century illustrator Chesley
bonestell. he was an illustrator of space exploration whose mixed illustrations
often combined photography with pen, ink, and paint. his style of photorealism
ultimately contributed to the american public’s imagination of what space and
shot more than 3000 photographs. Schmitt and Cernan took a range of pictures documenting
surface features and geologic formations in the Valley of taurus Littrow with earth foating
above.the photographs showing a celestial body above the given horizon harkens back to ansel
adams’s “Moonrise over hernandez, NM.”this black-and-white photograph shows a turn-ofthe-century
adobe-like village set in the foreground with snowcapped mountains and a near full
Moon set in a deep gray-black sky. Likewise, the Schmitt/Cernan photographs depict the bluemarbled
earth suspended in a black lunar sky and foating above the Moon’s hills, craters, massive
rocks and, occasionally, the landed LeM.