On July 20, 1969, the landing of the first manned spacecraft on the moon was broadcast on television. Rather than watch it with my family, I camped out with my friends Randy and Ronnie, hoping to see it with our binoculars. Thus we saw nothing of the event.
Many years later, I had become an active collector of found photographs, and discovered a small album of snapshots of a television screen taken as those historic images were beamed back to the eager audience. One of them had the caption, in primitive graphics, "Live From the Surface of the Moon." Somehow that seemed to capture my penchant for missing the real action, and considering it later through an artifact.
I subsequently found that many, many people were taking snapshots of the TV screen that night, and now I have a small collection of grainy, poorly focused, visible- scan-line images taken directly from TV sets in living rooms all over America.
I think there's some kind of analog with Plato's Cave there, but.....
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Ahhh, yes. I was one of those people. I even have a shot with Nixon on the phone in the lower corner. I always wonder what I did with the negatives. Somehow taking, having the photos, at the time, made it all seem a bit more real.
ReplyDeleteI hope you'll locate your negatives someday, and post the results on your blog. You're right; that so many people documented the event by photographing the TV screen attests to what a meaningful and significant event it was. Thanks much!
ReplyDeleteHi Robert. Excellent blog.. So inspiring. I wanted to write to you but couldn't find an email for you.. Anyway, I write an odd blog called Dioramasandcleverthings.com. You might like it. Also, can I repost some of your images occassionaly, crediting your blog with a link?
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot.
Tom in NYC.
PS I would also like to list you on my links if thats ok.
ReplyDelete