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

exaMINING the ICONIC aND reDISCOVerING the phOtOGraphY Of 307
SpaCe expLOratION IN CONtext tO the hIStOrY Of phOtOGraphY
the photography of american railroads: specifcally, the survey, building and
operation of the american railway system by some of the pioneer late 19th
century landscape photographers for the U.S. Geological Survey, and in the
20th century, the imaginative and stylistic (steam) railroad photography of O.
Winston Link and richard Steinheimer. 53 their documentation of the feeting
era of steam locomotives set in context to the american landscape has been
revered for detail. these photographers portrayed the scope and scale of the
american railroad system with care and exactitude. this attention to detail of
scope and scale exists in andrews’s work as well.
andrews’s photograph documenting the second return-to-fight of the
Space Shuttle Discovery ofers several references to the history of photography
and space. both the placement and framing of his remote hasselblad camera
is reminiscent of the remote video images of apollo 17’s LeM blasting of
from the surface of the Moon. however, it is andrews choice of black-andwhite
flm and one of the dried out ponds that typically surround the launch
pad complexes in dry weather that distinguishes this image. as a result, the
foreground patterns of dried out clay playing against the ascending shuttle has
aesthetics reminiscent of western american desert images captured by 19th
century landscape photographers like t. h. O’Sullivan and J. K. hillers. the
other worldliness patterns of dried out clay can also be compared to some of
the MrO (Mars reconnaissance Orbiter) surface images of Martian polar cap
regions. In contrast, andrews remote close-up of a russian Soyuz rocket just
seconds in to its liftof, ofers an insightful document of the launch pad—the
same one used to launch Sputnik nearly 40 years earlier. It also portrays the
elegance of russian rocketry, long hidden and secretive during the former
Soviet era.
Next comes the photography of bill Ingalls, currently the senior in-house
photographer at NaSa headquarters in Washington, DC. Ingalls has been the
frst NaSa photographer to routinely document NaSa’s collaboration with
the russian space program. Ingalls tends to explore what Mailer describes as
the “manners of the men” through unique access and time in which to
photograph both the american and russian human space fight programs.
Since 1999 his continuous documentation has captured the cultural similarities
and diferences between both spacefight programs. his documentation of the
solemnity of the russians in the training of their cosmonauts and launching of
their rockets from the same launch complexes that supported Sputnik and
Gagarin warrants examination. as of this writing, Ingalls remains the only
photographer to have continuous access to every russian launch involving
53. See O. Winston Link’s Steam, Steel and Stars (harry N. abrams); The Last Steam Railroad in
America (harry N. abrams); richard Steinheimer’s A Passion for Trains (W. h. Norton &
Company) and Walker evans photographic studies of railroad car insignias for a 1956 Fortune
article “before they Disappear.”