Footprint on the Moon

(Original) (Recreation)

The first photograph that I will be analysing is the photograph titled “Footprint on the Moon”. It was taken on
the moon in 1969 by the astronauts and the personnel at NASA. The camera used to take this photograph was
the Hasselblad Data Camera, HDC for short. This camera is known for being one of the finest cameras in the
world. This title mainly comes from its pristine colour rendition and its superior image quality.1 The exact HDC
camera that was used to take this image and broadcast it to the rest of the world, was the HDC with a Zeiss
Biogon 60 mm f/5.6 lens and a 70 mm film magazine, and a Hasselblad Electric Camera (HEC) with a Zeiss
Planar 80 mm f/2.8 lens.
HDC cameras are used for a wide variety of purposes, but due to their excellent quality they were used by
expert photographers to capture complex landscapes with incredible detail.

In the following paragraph, I will explain how the HDC works. As the HDC is a digital camera, it “ uses a grid (or
an array) of photosensors to record the incoming pattern of light. Each sensor returns an electrical current when it’s
struck by the incoming light3. This is a citation taken from the article “How does a digital camera work”. These
images were then transferred back down to earth using the Kodak BIMAT transfer processing system4.

This photograph represents a historic moment because this was mankind’s first step onto the moon. This was
no small feat due to how complex and unique the whole challenge and process were. There were hundreds of
people who worked on it and thousands of lines of code were written. All of this, combined with the complete
and utter determination of the astronauts on the spaceship, is the only examples of what made this photograph
possible, and that is what makes it so historical.

Whilst this photo does not depict any historical trend in photography at the time it was made, it does show
something that all photographers, professional or not, had been capturing for years; big events. Almost every
event, occurrence or performance that affected a reasonable amount of people and was interesting has most
likely got a picture or a painting of it. This is the way that people have always shared stories and retold events,
even generations later. So whilst this is not a trend that is only of the period, it is a trend that has been followed
since before photography was invented.
One could also argue that the moon counts as nature, and thus it followed the trend of taking pictures with and
with in nature, but that opens a whole other debate.
Sources :

1 Bickham, Posted byMatthew. “10 Reasons Why NASA Chose the Hasselblad Data Camera (HDC) to Take to
the Moon.” 10 Reasons Why NASA Chose the Hasselblad Data Camera (HDC) to Take to the Moon, 14 June
2020,
https://matthewbickham.wordpress.com/2020/06/02/10-reasons-why-nasa-chose-the-hasselblad-data-camera-
hdc-to-take-to-the-moon/.

2Jeanette D. Moses | Published Jul 3, ., and . Hasselblad Moon Nasa news Photo Of The Day. “Fifty Years
Ago Hasselblad Sent the First Cameras to the Moon.” Popular Photography, 14 Apr. 2021,
https://www.popphoto.com/fifty-years-ago-hasselblad-sent-first-cameras-to-moon/#:~:text=The%20cameras%2
0that%20captured%20the%20first%20frames%20from,%28HEC%29%20with%20a%20Zeiss%20Planar%208
0mm%20f%2F2.8%20lens.

3 Chambers, Mark L. “How Does a Digital Camera Work?” Dummies

https://www.dummies.com/computers/pcs/how-does-a-digital-camera-work/#:~:text=A%20digital%20camera%
2C%20on%20the%20other%20hand%2C%20uses,current%20when%20it%E2%80%99s%20struck%20by%2
0the%20incoming%20light.

4 Machemer, Theresa. “Apollo-Era Moon Photos Were Developed in Space. Here's How.” Science, National
Geographic, 3 May 2021,
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/moon-photographs-from-1960s-were-developed-in-space-
heres-how.