Farewell Endeavour
Photos taken on the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly-over at Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, CA
Photos taken on the Space Shuttle Endeavour fly-over at Griffith Observatory, Los Angeles, CA
The most exciting images to have come from NASA, for me, are all antiquated. They were all shot on film, some of them in black-and-white. Attached to them for me is a feeling of nostalgia, of wishing I could have been there, of feeling like those moments were firmly planted in history. When I shot my photos of Endeavour as it flew over the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, while they looked much better than snapshots, they didn’t have that feeling. And no amount of retouching seemed to be helping. But then I decided to see them with grain and in black-and-white.
Traditionally, I make no effort to make my digital photos look like film and vice versa. But grainy black-and-white, with specific filter control, for me lends these images the austerity, timelessness, and gravity that match the experience and how I think that experience deserves to be conveyed, shared and memorialized. The image I chose for the title image, which I shared again without text, makes me feel melancholy and proud all at once. I’m not a particularly patriotic person, but watching the shuttle fly off with those clouds behind it makes me proud to have been somehow a part of the program that gave it flight. It’s not just about being an American. It’s about being a human being who cares about exploration, about learning, and about transcending the boundaries laid out before us.
I included the image of the moon in color to remind us that today we all stare up at the same night sky that our ancestors did, just as the first humans who ever dreamed of going there did. There are so many of us on different sides of political and national borders that we feel divide us. But together, perhaps we will one day create a new program meant to take humans to the far reaches of time and space, and revive in humanity the drive to press onwards and upwards, outwards.
Into the great beyond.
Traditionally, I make no effort to make my digital photos look like film and vice versa. But grainy black-and-white, with specific filter control, for me lends these images the austerity, timelessness, and gravity that match the experience and how I think that experience deserves to be conveyed, shared and memorialized. The image I chose for the title image, which I shared again without text, makes me feel melancholy and proud all at once. I’m not a particularly patriotic person, but watching the shuttle fly off with those clouds behind it makes me proud to have been somehow a part of the program that gave it flight. It’s not just about being an American. It’s about being a human being who cares about exploration, about learning, and about transcending the boundaries laid out before us.
I included the image of the moon in color to remind us that today we all stare up at the same night sky that our ancestors did, just as the first humans who ever dreamed of going there did. There are so many of us on different sides of political and national borders that we feel divide us. But together, perhaps we will one day create a new program meant to take humans to the far reaches of time and space, and revive in humanity the drive to press onwards and upwards, outwards.
Into the great beyond.
