I'm still trying to understand how I feel about this so this is a bit of a napkin ramble;
I can't help but feel like they've missed the mark a bit on some of the imagery from the mission that's been published so far.
One of the most compelling shots from the mission, to me, was Reid Wiseman's IPhone footage from within the capsule while Earth was being eclipsed[0].
At the start there's a moment you can see the window frame and the Moon all together. Seeing the moon in context of their vantage point within the the context of the capsule gave me the awe I had as a kid again, more than almost any shot that's come out this mission. I actually felt like I was in the capsule looking at a massive, sterile cold sphere.
I understand wanting to take a nice and centered DLSR picture of... _The Moon_ when you're floating by it, but frankly I've seen thousands of those. They're doing a flyby in a capsule in space, I want to have a taste of how the moon exists from _that_ context. What is it like being ~4,000 from the Moon's surface? Take a crappy 0.5x video from your phone showing the inside, then stick it front of the window. Let the Moon be contextualized from your vantage point. I wont be able to make out every crater and basin and the colors might be off from your eye's view, but I will be able to understand what they are seeing. Everyone has an intuitive understanding and feeling of an IPhone's optics and image pipeline, in some ways seeing the Moon through that is more real and relatable than any mirrorless DLSR + color correction.
This being said I don't want to take away from the accomplishment, I'm terribly excited about space exploration and it getting more light in the zeitgeist.
this is one of the great insights of photography and we can all apply it. no one gives a shit about another picture of the leaning tower of pisa in your photo album. its the weird, candid, accidental shots that are most interesting and enduring. but its easy to not grasp that in the moment - the tower is what you're there to see, and its stunning, so of course it's what you photograph. those spaces in between though, like that iphone video, are what secretly transcend
If you're into this, check out the Apollo 11 gallery[1]. Contains very high-quality images from the actual trip, including "not so common" pictures from the moon.
On the day of the splashdown, I visited the official NASA Space Shop, and I was met with an announcement that the availability of Artemis gear is severely limited "due to unprecedented demand" and there is still a "delayed shipping" notice up there.
9 comments:
These appear to be the highlights. There's also other galleries in https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/ with a bunch more photos:
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/artemis-ii-launch/
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/journey-to-the-moon/
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/artemis-ii-flight-day-highlight...
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/lunar-flyby/
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/return-to-earth/
https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/artemis-ii-splashdown-and-recov...
I'm still trying to understand how I feel about this so this is a bit of a napkin ramble;
I can't help but feel like they've missed the mark a bit on some of the imagery from the mission that's been published so far.
One of the most compelling shots from the mission, to me, was Reid Wiseman's IPhone footage from within the capsule while Earth was being eclipsed[0].
At the start there's a moment you can see the window frame and the Moon all together. Seeing the moon in context of their vantage point within the the context of the capsule gave me the awe I had as a kid again, more than almost any shot that's come out this mission. I actually felt like I was in the capsule looking at a massive, sterile cold sphere.
I understand wanting to take a nice and centered DLSR picture of... _The Moon_ when you're floating by it, but frankly I've seen thousands of those. They're doing a flyby in a capsule in space, I want to have a taste of how the moon exists from _that_ context. What is it like being ~4,000 from the Moon's surface? Take a crappy 0.5x video from your phone showing the inside, then stick it front of the window. Let the Moon be contextualized from your vantage point. I wont be able to make out every crater and basin and the colors might be off from your eye's view, but I will be able to understand what they are seeing. Everyone has an intuitive understanding and feeling of an IPhone's optics and image pipeline, in some ways seeing the Moon through that is more real and relatable than any mirrorless DLSR + color correction.
This being said I don't want to take away from the accomplishment, I'm terribly excited about space exploration and it getting more light in the zeitgeist.
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtemisProgram/comments/1sq9azh/iph...
this is one of the great insights of photography and we can all apply it. no one gives a shit about another picture of the leaning tower of pisa in your photo album. its the weird, candid, accidental shots that are most interesting and enduring. but its easy to not grasp that in the moment - the tower is what you're there to see, and its stunning, so of course it's what you photograph. those spaces in between though, like that iphone video, are what secretly transcend
If you're into this, check out the Apollo 11 gallery[1]. Contains very high-quality images from the actual trip, including "not so common" pictures from the moon.
[1]: https://www.nasa.gov/gallery/apollo-11/
"very high-quality" sorry am i missing something? i can only see a max res of 1920 in any dimension
Missing context :P These are images from 60-ish years ago, so about HD quality is definitely high quality for the time.
the film they were using for these pictures allows for way higher resolution scans than 1080p
On the day of the splashdown, I visited the official NASA Space Shop, and I was met with an announcement that the availability of Artemis gear is severely limited "due to unprecedented demand" and there is still a "delayed shipping" notice up there.
They all seem to be a disappointingly low resolution, unfortunately.