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Full Moon
jblackman wrote to us with a review of Full Moon. Rather than a more normal book review here, Full Moon is actually a collection of some of the best photographs taken of the Moon over the several decades. It also includes an original essay from Andrew Chaikin, as well. Click below to learn more.
Full Moon
author
Michael Light
pages
244
publisher
Knopf Publishing
rating
8/10
reviewer
jblackman
ISBN
0375406344
summary
A pictorial story of the Moon.
One of the many great successes of the Apollo Program is the photographic record it left to posterity. Over the course of 11 missions and six moon landings, astronauts took over 32,000 still photographs. Out of those 32,000 pictures, a few of them have become iconic, trancending their documentarian roots and embedding themselves in the collective conscious. Many of the rest have languished in NASA vaults, unknown for the most part.
In Full Moon, Michael Light weaves 129 of these forgotten treasures into a composite moon shot that captures the magnitude -- and the majesty -- of what might be humanity's grandest achievement.
Light follows the course of a hypothetical mission, from the flames and fury of lift-off to the triumphant return to earth. In between are images of a shrinking homeworld, a moon growing ever-larger in size, magnificent lunar vistas, and a vertiginous series of spacewalk photographs.
Full Moon is a triumph, and its status as a space photography tour de force is due to two major factors. Obviously, Light was solely responsible for the selection and arrangement of the photos, and his artistic judgment is what gives this book much of its impact. For example, one of the shots is of perhaps a square foot of nondescript lunar soil. Immediately after it is a picture of the exact same terrain, but this time marked by a human footprint. Even more evocative is the image of a family snapshot, wrapped in plastic, lying on the surface of the moon: a momento left by one of the men who walked there. The picture of a mighty Saturn booster, hurtling toward the heavens, framed by a dark navy sky is (currently) not one of the photographic icons of the Apollo Program, but after seeing it, you'll certainly think that it should be. The sheer breadth of the human exploratory effort is made apparent in gatefold panorama shots of the moon's surface -- and that's even before that little metallic glint catches your eye, and you realize that speck in the dust is the LEM, and this particular picture was taken untold miles away from it.
Light has done a marvelous job of choosing photographs to put on display. Of course, his feat was entirely dependent on the men who were actually there. The astronauts sent to the moon were chosen based on wide variety of criteria, but photographic prowess might as well have been one of them judging by the quality of the pictures they brought back. More than once, a moonscape might seem to possess an almost unreal clarity, as though it were a render. To be sure, an airless environment will do wonders for visibility, but the astronauts and their cameras were also just that good. In addition, the clarity of the prints benefit from an entirely new transfer from the NASA master negatives; most of the pictures seen so far have been third- or fourth-generation copies.
Any issues I had with Full Moon are merely matters of personal preference. I would have liked to see a few pictures from the development and assembly of the spacecraft, or maybe a couple pictures that emphasized the massive human effort that made this program a success. However, their absence does not detract at all from the book as a whole, and a case can easily be made, in fact, as to why they should not have been included. Some might find fault with the spacewalk pictures, as they were culled from the Gemini archives, rather than being true shots from Apollo. To me, though, their origin made not a bit of difference. They were wonderfully composed shots that only enhanced Light's mission to the moon.
Full Moon is capped off with an original essay from Andrew Chaikin (author of A Man On The Moon), notes and comments from Michael Light, and a thumbnailed index to the photographs in the book.
Full Moon is definitely skewed more toward artistic perspectives than scientific. However, I have absolutely no qualms in recommending it to anyone with the slightest interest in either the space program or photography. The purchase of this book is not an insignificant investment, but it is just that: an investment. You'll keep coming back to it, to get one more glimpse of our civilization at its very best.
In Full Moon, Michael Light weaves 129 of these forgotten treasures into a composite moon shot that captures the magnitude -- and the majesty -- of what might be humanity's grandest achievement.
Light follows the course of a hypothetical mission, from the flames and fury of lift-off to the triumphant return to earth. In between are images of a shrinking homeworld, a moon growing ever-larger in size, magnificent lunar vistas, and a vertiginous series of spacewalk photographs.
Full Moon is a triumph, and its status as a space photography tour de force is due to two major factors. Obviously, Light was solely responsible for the selection and arrangement of the photos, and his artistic judgment is what gives this book much of its impact. For example, one of the shots is of perhaps a square foot of nondescript lunar soil. Immediately after it is a picture of the exact same terrain, but this time marked by a human footprint. Even more evocative is the image of a family snapshot, wrapped in plastic, lying on the surface of the moon: a momento left by one of the men who walked there. The picture of a mighty Saturn booster, hurtling toward the heavens, framed by a dark navy sky is (currently) not one of the photographic icons of the Apollo Program, but after seeing it, you'll certainly think that it should be. The sheer breadth of the human exploratory effort is made apparent in gatefold panorama shots of the moon's surface -- and that's even before that little metallic glint catches your eye, and you realize that speck in the dust is the LEM, and this particular picture was taken untold miles away from it.
Light has done a marvelous job of choosing photographs to put on display. Of course, his feat was entirely dependent on the men who were actually there. The astronauts sent to the moon were chosen based on wide variety of criteria, but photographic prowess might as well have been one of them judging by the quality of the pictures they brought back. More than once, a moonscape might seem to possess an almost unreal clarity, as though it were a render. To be sure, an airless environment will do wonders for visibility, but the astronauts and their cameras were also just that good. In addition, the clarity of the prints benefit from an entirely new transfer from the NASA master negatives; most of the pictures seen so far have been third- or fourth-generation copies.
Any issues I had with Full Moon are merely matters of personal preference. I would have liked to see a few pictures from the development and assembly of the spacecraft, or maybe a couple pictures that emphasized the massive human effort that made this program a success. However, their absence does not detract at all from the book as a whole, and a case can easily be made, in fact, as to why they should not have been included. Some might find fault with the spacewalk pictures, as they were culled from the Gemini archives, rather than being true shots from Apollo. To me, though, their origin made not a bit of difference. They were wonderfully composed shots that only enhanced Light's mission to the moon.
Full Moon is capped off with an original essay from Andrew Chaikin (author of A Man On The Moon), notes and comments from Michael Light, and a thumbnailed index to the photographs in the book.
Full Moon is definitely skewed more toward artistic perspectives than scientific. However, I have absolutely no qualms in recommending it to anyone with the slightest interest in either the space program or photography. The purchase of this book is not an insignificant investment, but it is just that: an investment. You'll keep coming back to it, to get one more glimpse of our civilization at its very best.
Purchase this book at fatbrain.
When you guys said "full moon" I couldn't help but think of the pictures that appeared on slashdot during the last Comdex and a certain very important person from redmond. ;)
It's a book of pictures..! Not much reading involved! *grin*
Hooptie
"Heavens, it appears that my weewee has been stricken with rigor mortis!" -- Stewie Griffin
... saying "sorry pals, I squandered your money"
There is a story on adobe.com about the restoration of the photos. http://www.adobe.com/prin t/gallery/lightstudios/main.html
A photo album of moon shots is worth taking a look at. At worst, it'd make a great coffee table book. ("Oh, those are my holiday snaps.")
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
... on exhibition dates, prints for purchase, etc, available here. Not cheap. Note: a slow site even without the slashdot effect.
Nasa needs to Open Source the Saturn V!
That way, we can all see if it was possible.... Yeah! ;)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This signature contains text from the worlds funniest signature.
Thanks for reminding me that when I get paid I really should go and buy this marvellous book.
The astronauts used specially modified Hasselblad large format cameras and the quality given by the large negative shows up in these photos.
I can't believe the copy negatives were being allowed to rot away (the real negatives are very carefully stored in controlled conditions) as this is world history.
"Information wants to be paid"
I cannot possibly think of anything more boring that photography of the moon. Well... at least after a while... youve seen it once, youve seen it a thousand times... Its doesnt change that often, you know.
However, the recent shots of the near earth asteroid were pretty interesting... At least there is a rock that I haven't seen before... Even had a white-spot to spruce things up and get you thinking!
I would have liked to have seen a few pictures from the development and assembly of the spacecraft, or maybe a couple of pictures that emphasized the massive human effort that made the program a success.
Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox wrote a (very well written) account that was all about the massive human effort that made the Apollo program a success (Apollo: Race to the Moon). The only thing they left out was the story of the astronauts, and because of that their book did not sell well and is now out of print.
I have read that surveys show that the American public's support of the space program is "broad but shallow". People want to read the astounding tales of real-life Buck Rogers, but they don't want hear anything about the science and technology that made the whole thing possible. Most people go into computer science and enginering for the money instead of a passion for science and technology. I somehow think there must be a connection between this attitude and the current state of the space program (0 for 2 for the latest Mars probes...)
Soft morphology provides an excellent means of restoring old pictures. While it eliminates noise (i. e. dirty specks), it preserves fine details at the same time.
One can imagine the simplest form of this by using a fine brush that redraws the image. The brush is just a bit too coarse to draw the dust specks as well, so these disappear. Care has to be taken not to destroy fine details, too; therefore this operation has to be refined a bit. (Genetic algorithms "train" the brush so it will improve the operation.)
Very interesting research is going on in this area - and these pictures would have been a perfect chance to translate this into action.
I want pictures of the dark side of the moon !
Couldn't you have got Dave Bowman to review it? "My God ...Its full of moons.."
specially modified Hasselblad
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
When you guys said "full moon" I couldn't help but think of the pictures that appeared on slashdot during the last Comdex and a certain very important person from redmond. ;)
A little immature however slightly funny nontheless.
What really I thought was interesting was this little quote from the adobe link further down:
Light says he uses Photoshop "as if it were a darkroom, not a fantasy lab."
He did not "put material in or take material out, or move things around, or change a
red to a blue." Even so, he notes, "photographs have never been reality anyway. Their
veracity and objectivity have been a culturally shared fantasy from the start."
Well stemming from the obvious plug for adobe products I would have to disagree with his last statement. In all but the most technologically primitive cultures we have pretty much integrated that concept of the camera into almost everyone's mind. Look at national geographic. One of the most interesting magazines that is read in almost every country with people who can read or at least look at pictures. I see no compelling reason that pictures would be fantasy. When I see a picture I generally see reality. In fact there are mathmetical means of telling if said image is in fact real or not.
The trend to the obscure is not one that I am particularly fond of. Reality is ever present regardless of how we try to dilute it.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
*reads Full Moon*
*turns into werewolf*
Arrgh. This makes typing difficult.
I went to see the exhibition that this book is taken from last year. Seeing the photos blown up to large sizes and put onto a gallery wall was impressive. The best picture had to be a shot of a half moon, it was about 8x4 feet, the blackness of space surrounding this ball of grey rock.
NASA can't open source the Saturn V, because they lost the plans. We couldn't build another one if we wanted to.
Save a tree. Eat a beaver.
I asked for this book for xmas. It rocks. The pictures in it are so incredible. One of the coolest things about the moon pics is that you think they're a black and white photo until you catch a glimpse of a copper deposit in the dirt, or some red patch on a space suit. Its almost a color-less world on the moon.
You slashdot losers bitch and whine about Jon Katz making a far more relevant post here, yet no one gives a damn about this one??!?
I think that the real problem is that you can't see what this represents. The Apollo program was in fact a mission that involved a great deal of technical know how and was not really that easy to accomplish. I think that qualifies as something that nerds would like.
What does this have to do with ANY topic that is routinely covered by slashdot?
Perhaps the second part of the title of the site.
..Stuff that Matters
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
... saying "sorry pals, I squandered your money"
Are you saying we wasted our money on the Apollo program? I think that getting important data about one of our celesital bodies in the solar system would be good enough.
Slashdot social engineering at it's finest
I recieved Full Moon for Christmas and loved it. If you are interested in the space program and seeing it from a new angle, check this book out. The pictures of the astronuts show them as people doing a difficult job, that they were glad they were doing. Not just as idealized heros.
I wish I had been able to see the exibit when it was at SFMOMA.
My only critisism was the use of digital effects to blur the close up picture of the family left on the surface of the moon. The image made a strong statement without the use of digital manipulation.
FullMoonDK it is beautiful.
Thank you.
I support ScoobyDoo.
Whilist the book is enthraling, the exhibition is stunning - I would recommend it heavily.
I saw it at the Hayward Gallery in London last autumn. Even though I'd 'read' the book previously (okay, there isn't that much text aside from the captions at the back), and there was no new material in the exhibition, seeing one of the lunar panoramics taking up most of a wall was awesome.
With all the lights out on the moon, it must have been a spectacular site to look up into space and see millions of stars. I hope to visit the moon one day and see the sights for myself.
Insensitive fuckheads. I hope you all rot in hell.
Blown up big I got the impression of a vast, trackless desert. You tend to look at video footage of the moon and think of it as a little ball in the depths of space. When you look at the photos, you realise that we have explored but a few tiny patches of an immense and ancient world.
It seems to have been such a long time since Man was last on the moon. I would really like some more up to date close-ups taken with a good old 35mm.
threadeds blog
I'm not really sure how this counts as insightful. I see no "insight" offered by this post.
- Y
"There is no culture in computer science, only cults." - M. Felleisen
It has nothing to do with the presence or absence of an atmosphere. It has to do with the presence of the Sun. The bright Sun washes out everything else in the "sky." It is the same effect that causes a full moon to render all but the brightest stars invisible from the Earth (you can verify this for yourself.)
Screw 35 mm -- lets get some astronauts up there with an IMAX camera - or better yet, the 3D space camera! Why use 35 mm stills when you can have the wide screen? It's like VHS vs. DVD ....
specially modified Hasselblad
materialism isn't everything
WTF do you mean by that?
A: Hasselblads were the best quality camera money could buy back then. For a mission like that you needed the best equipment to bring back the best photographs. Hasselblads were standard issue.
B: They had to be specially modified to stand up to conditions in space and on the moon. Shielded against radiation, kitted out with modified shutter buttons that could be operated wearing spacesuit gloves etc.
You sir, are obviously a twat who should be moderated way, way down...
"Information wants to be paid"
I thought this was an anthology of High School degradation techniques related to the book... "Drive by Moonings"
heh
Tenement
--
Post the obit please. I just heard him on the radio the other day!
Personally, I wasn't sure if it would be considered relevant or not, so I thought I'd submit it and let the powers that be make that decision. I apologize if you didn't want to see it.
It would have been rather easy to punch some holes in the black painted wall of the hangar where it was filmed...
"You sir, are obviously a twat who should be moderated way, way down..."
You, sir, are a moron for not reading the subject and getting the slightly stupid joke.
Dan
I'm curious, never heard of him before.
Micro$oft, perhaps, but not Sun.
Maybe "Troll" or "Flamebait", but not off-topic. The topic here is the book "Full Moon", the pictures in that book, and how those pictures were shot. Parent here seems pretty much on-topic to me.
Here some jpegs from the book.
(ANYONE: Why aren't there *any* stars in the sky in any of these? I have seen video clips of space walks during shuttle missions and they have stars showing in the clips...)
Pic #1 Pic #2 Pic #3 Pic #4 Pic #5 Pic #6 Pic #7 Pic #8 Pic #9 Pic #10 Pic #11 Pic #12
In other words, if there are thousands of these photos that have been sitting untouched in the NASA vaults, what about them made them unpalatable for public consumption? Conversely, what about the publicizied ones made them appropos? While one my correctly postulate that a Freedom of Information Act (or a relative thereof) might provide a means to leverage various declassified government-held photographs (anyone for Cuban Missle Crisis Satellite Photos?), the question has to become one of interpretation, rather than access.
Ultimately then, what we face in the software community resonates strongly with this text. Should we view Sun's hesitancy to release JAVAC source code as being analogous to governmental hesitancy to release these photographs?
I believe the reason that you can't get hold of all the photographs from the Apollo missions is that NASA doesn't have the staff to digitise them all. Their budget is being cut all the time. Like most archivists, they would prefer that noone had access to documents than risk that unskilled or unsupervised access damaged their archives.
I think it would be very nice, and well in line with what NASA is supposed to do, to digitise all the photographs and distribute them on (cheap) CD or over the net - the same way the Planetary Data System (Pioneer, Voyager and other images) works. Note that images from Pioneer, Voyager, &c, arrived in digital form so the effort required to distribute them electronically is much less. More, my opinion is that this is part of what they are required to do - make their information as widely available as they can (at least to US people, who paid for it all in the first place!)
I own a copy of "Full Moon" and went to the exhibition when it was in the Hayward Gallery in London (in the UK). The exhibition is amazing, and the book is beautiful, but I feel a lingering annoyance at the only way to get hold of the images is to buy an expensive photography book.
Books like this have a place in the world, and they are a pleasure to own, but they should not be the sole method of obtaining these (US Federally funded!) images, because only fairly well-off people can afford to buy the book.
These images are not just photographs, they are precious original scientific data and should be as widely available as possible.
Nicolai
Yahoo! search
Duh! Who ever let you have a computer? Yes, he is still very alive and funny as ever.
Fox News Channel is running a biography of him right now, in a refreshing change of pace from the "Bush-versus-McCain" bullshit from South Carolina.
The book A MAN ON THE MOON was recently published in a 3 Volume, Illustrated commemorative set, also with many amazing photographs.
For all you space geeks I highly recommend it.
And if any of you were watching the Mars Polar Lander news conferences (I know I was) Andy Chaiken was there reporting for space.com . I don't know if space.com is any good since it's a subscripion space newspaper (at least it used to be) and it seems a little pricey to me, but it looks like it's of quality. Especially if they have guys like Chaiken on the staff.
Ignore Alien Orders
Just because Yahoo searches don't turn up links to his obituary doesn't mean he isn't dead! Turn your fucking TV on, for the love of Christ! Or better yet, don't! It doesn't matter a fuck-all to me whether you believe it or not!
Man, this was so funny I am in excruciating physical pain! Jesus Christ, my sides are nearly literally splitting! ROFLMAO! Thanks for moderating this gem up! It really made my day!
.. *wipes tears of laughter off face*
Werewolves
I was repeating what, in retrospect, must have been an urban myth. You are certainly right that recreating the Saturn V exactly would be an enormous effort.
But we wouldn't necessarily have to start completely from scratch. The Shuttle system is modular, and could be adapted to a heavy lift configuration by replacing the orbiter with a cargo "pod"
If you don't have to worry about bringing the orbiter back, most of the weight (wings, landing gear, heat tiles, etc.) is waste. You could get as much as a hundred tons to low orbit that way. The orbiter weighs 175,000 lbs., and its largest payload was 48,000 lbs. You'd still need structure and the the three Shuttle main engines, but that still leaves a lot of payload capacity.
Save a tree. Eat a beaver.
As much as we would like it,m some of us do not have televisions on our desks, dumbass.
Looks to me like the Yahoo! link was just to tell another poster who Don Knotts is/was, so you must be an illeterate.
Also, ABCnews.com, CBS.com, no anybody else is reporting that Don Knotts is dead, not on the radio news here either.
Do you have a scoop, or are you just full of shit?
Does not have a thing about it either!
Aren't you children supposed to be in school?
If ABC or CBS doesn't have it yet, they will. What ever happened to people doing their own goddamn research instead of this "post me a link" bullshit? This whole society of "instant gratification" has resulted in a gigantic population of slackers, something that Mr. Knotts definitely was not!
Can you read?? WELL, CAN YOU?? Just how goddamn dumb are you?? It's right there, plain as day. Okay, if you can't read, here's a goddamn link right to the fucking story:
Actor Don Knotts Dead at 79
Jesus Christ crossed the Rio Grande, some of you people are dense.
What in the world is the matter with you?
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/021800/donkno tts.sml
Not Found
The requested object does not exist on this server. The link you followed is either outdated, inaccurate, or the server has been instructed not to let you have it. Please inform the site administrator of the referring page.
Stop making things up you big fat liar. Don Knotts is immortal.
Too bad, you can not get away with another fake like you did on the moon and you can't fake Don Knotts' death like you did Kennedy's.
Look here
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/021800/
But I got the first post :) Even cartoon charachters wish to make a Slashdot first post :)) (Or, yeah, I am lame... BTW - how to turn off that karma thing?)
<^>_<(ô ô)>_<^>
In the interest of efficiency, can you add some functionality that automatically responds rudely to Jon Katz articles? The amount of time some readers spend spewing the same flame over and over again is just plain inefficient!
For example:
Jon Katz: "This is my opinion and some readers may find it interesting. BTW, I'm not the devil."
Troll#1: "only linux matters, screw this guy"
Troll#2: "dude, he is wrong and i am right"
Troll#3: "first post!"
Troll#4: "Dude, slashdot has gotten SO boring since I started reading it"
Troll#5: "I never submit any news, THATS why it sucks so bad. But now that it sucks so bad I won't ever submit any news cause that would just make it good... oh... I see... No, no, I don't understand. For a minute I though that Jon Katz wasn't the devil. He's trying to trick us!"
Troll#6: "first post!"
I suppose I'm not too threatening, presently, but wait till I start Nautilus
There's a guy, and I think his name is Andrew
Chaiken, who sings/spits with an a'cappella
band named the House Jacks. He is able to
produce some of the most phenomenal percussion
sounds/licks with his vocal tract -- well beyond
the average "beat box". Is this the same guy?
Tweet, tweet.
Could we please shoot the designer of this site? (Whadda mean, Javascript abuse isn't a capital crime yet?)
The site's front page consists of a moon photo with a couple of blinking stars - no links, instructions, icons, or text other than "Full Moon". Neither the "Full Moon" text nor the large moon image are clickable. If you happen to guess that the stars aren't just GIF animations and move your mouse over one, link labels pop up. I hope no-one paid money for this, that it was done by someone's 14-year-old nephew who just read a book or two on HTML and Javascript; but I fear that a "professional" web designer charged lots of money for this travesty.
Arrgghh! It's worse than that! According to a comment in the source, it took two "professional" designers to create this mess.
Please, someone, tell me that this is somehow only because the site is slashdotted, that it's somehow better when not under load.
(Thus ends today's rant. Sorry.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
After all, there are perfectly good launch systems that are more efficient than the Shuttle already in place, already being used to achieve low-earth orbit.
...
:)
Going to the Moon is something the shuttle (and its existing launch systems) is unable to do.
In the context of this discussion, rebuilding the Saturn V would only really be worth the effort if we wanted to go to the moon again in a historic sense... something akin to the 'build a boat out of reeds and sail it across the Atlantic' experiment a few years ago, which I've forgotten the name of.
Anyway, since most modern launch platforms for deep space are designed to be as efficient as possible, and I remember reading somewhere (don't have the link handy, sorry, somewhere on NASA's site) that the majority of the deep-space, outer-earth orbit stuff that NASA does is only possible due to the use of the Earth to 'slingshot' cargo out
So, maybe we could use the shuttle system to get up into Earth orbit, and use the Earth itself to slingshot off to the moon again - thus not requiring the heavy industry for the Saturn V program.
Remember, our computers are much better now than they were in the 60's, and calculating space trajectories using the slingshot method may just be better than rebuilding heavy hardware to get us out to Lagrange...
As long as NASA remembers what measurement system to use, of course.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
The Moon and Earth are too bright for Hubble's cameras. Hubble is vamped to look at extremely dim objects, so looking at a the Moon or Earth would be like looking at the sun through a magnifying glass... it'd destroy your vision.
If I hadn't already posted to this thread, I think I'd definately make you Troll. Not only is this not a Katz article, but I have Katz filtered because I can't stand the guy. If you have something to say to Taco, then email him, unless it has significance to the thread. So go be Katz' job security elsewhere; and someone mod him Troll.
Thanks guys for the info about this book. I'd not heard of it before. After checking out the publisher's site etc I went out today and bought it. It's *well* worth the money, it is a wonderful book. The images are fantastic.
Spookily enough, according to my calendar, today there *is* a full moon...
Coincidence?