Neil Armstrong, the astronaut... and photographer?
At the end of the day anyone can call themselves a photographer, qualifications or not. I was amazed when i found a page in my photography book of a photograph that Neil Armstrong took of Buzz Aldrin on the moon.
It is such an incredible photograph, without even meaning to be! An astronaut took the photograph with no history in photography and without even having a viewfinder on the camera.
'Neil shot most of the photos on the moon, having the camera attached to a fitting on his spacesuit much of the time while I was doing a variety of experiments. I didn’t have such a camera holder on my suit, so it just made sense that Neil should handle the photography. He took some fantastic photographs, too, especially when one considers that there was no viewfinder on the intricate Hasselblad camera. We were basically “pointing and shooting.” Imagine taking such historic photographs and not even being able to tell what image you were getting. Unlike the digital camera era of today, in 1969 we were shooting on film, typically looking through a small optical opening on the back of the camera that corresponded with what the camera’s lens was “seeing.” But with our large space helmets, such a viewfinder would have done little good anyhow. So, similar to cowboys shooting their sixguns from their hips, we aimed the camera in the direction of what we wanted to photograph, and squeezed the trigger. Given that ambiguity, it is even more of a credit to Neil that we brought back such stunning photographs from the moon.'
I think the conclusion of this post is that i'm a geek when it comes to photography, which i think most people already knew. At Uni I feel like i'm constantly made to plan in detail my images, before i even take them. Then i'm told to re shoot them if they aren't quite right...but why? when in real life situations you don't have time to plan or re-shoot.
