My Time at NASA
In the summer of 1986 after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, I began making a series of color photographs with film at NASA and beyond. For 33 years, I carried those photographs with me as objects of childhood, representative of my fascination with gravity, space, and flight. Only occasionally would I flip through the images to revisit some form of photographic innocence as I worked on other projects. When an acquaintance mentioned that there were photographic negatives of NASA being auctioned off for less than the price of a NYC subway ride, I took a look online to see what was being offered for sale by a stranger on the internet. I immediately felt a connection not only to the subject matter of course, but an overwhelming sense of deja vu upon seeing the objects and spaces. The immediacy of wanting to position my color photographs next to images that were not yet in my possession in order to form a composition remained suspended until one by one little envelopes that I obsessively tracked, containing 4” x 5” negatives came via post. When I could finally form these visual compositions I was overcome with a feeling of selfishness because my personal visual history in color was being supported by my country’s historical imagery; imagery that had been made by someone whom I will most likely only know through their work. Their undated negatives are now mine to reproduce in any context to contribute to the deluge of fact, fiction, mystery, and awe, surrounding the US space program.
In the summer of 1986 after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, I began making a series of color photographs with film at NASA and beyond. For 33 years, I carried those photographs with me as objects of childhood, representative of my fascination with gravity, space, and flight. Only occasionally would I flip through the images to revisit some form of photographic innocence as I worked on other projects. When an acquaintance mentioned that there were photographic negatives of NASA being auctioned off for less than the price of a NYC subway ride, I took a look online to see what was being offered for sale by a stranger on the internet. I immediately felt a connection not only to the subject matter of course, but an overwhelming sense of deja vu upon seeing the objects and spaces. The immediacy of wanting to position my color photographs next to images that were not yet in my possession in order to form a composition remained suspended until one by one little envelopes that I obsessively tracked, containing 4” x 5” negatives came via post. When I could finally form these visual compositions I was overcome with a feeling of selfishness because my personal visual history in color was being supported by my country’s historical imagery; imagery that had been made by someone whom I will most likely only know through their work. Their undated negatives are now mine to reproduce in any context to contribute to the deluge of fact, fiction, mystery, and awe, surrounding the US space program.
