
Why it's so hard to find a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon - damohasi
http://apple.copydesk.org/2012/08/25/keep-in-mind-as-you-put-together-your-neil-armstrong-packages-tonight/
======
brudgers
_One idea: Use this picture of Neil shot immediately after his historic walk
on the moon._

After reading the Armstrong family's statement last night, that's the photo
which expresses the legacy he wished.

He looks ready to wink back.

<http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-37-5528HR.jpg>

~~~
jeffool
If I still worked in news (I worked in TV) I'd go with this, definitely. "Neil
Armstrong, seen here back in the lunar module after his historic moon walk..."

Also, the picture of Armstrong climbing back in the Lunar Module is fine.

Conversely, to those arguing the use of a reflective shot of Aldrin's visor? I
think that's worth including if I'd also included that shot inside the LM. An
close up of this picture, showing Alrin's helmet, backpack, and shoulders,
reading "Neil Armstrong took most of the photographs on the moon that had an
astronaut in them. However he can be seen clearly in the reflection of Buzz
Aldrin's visor here." Just pair it with a matching (size-wise) photograph,
unzoomed.

~~~
brudgers
What I love about the photograph is that it captures his total wonderment at
having just fn walked on the fn moon.

He and Aldrin still have to get their spacecraft off the Lunar surface,
rendezvous with the command module, fly back to Earth, and land the damn
thing.

It captures a timelessness moment in between.

~~~
angstrom
If nothing else, the following plaque sums the humbling nature of someone who
accurately captured the gravitas of the moment:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:A11.plaque.jpg>

Today, some of the flags planted on the moon still stand upright. However, 40
years of intense UV radiation have bleached them all white. The plaque
remains.

~~~
estebank
Somehow I feel that bleached out featureless flags on the Moon matches the
message in that plaque perfectly.

------
jyap
_In fact, now that you know this picture was manipulated by the source, I’d
urge you to have it removed from your photo archives. Permanently._

Uh, Neil Armstrong had a Hasselblad camera strapped to his chest. I'd say
excuse the lack of sky composition. Besides, the original picture also
captures the lander in the composition. Wouldn't you want more photographic
detail in a moon landing operation photo instead of one which is more
harmoniously composed but contains useless black sky? But like I said, he's
taking pictures with a camera strapped to his chest.

.. And who cares if it isn't a picture of Neil? It is the best representation
of the feat and overall project. Besides, he took the picture.

~~~
batista
> _.. And who cares if it isn't a picture of Neil?_

Editors searching for pictures of Neil? Because he was the one that died
recently and they have to write stories about him?

~~~
jyap
The only people who care that it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong are:

\- People who know it isn't a picture of Neil Armstrong and feel like they
need to point that out.

\- People who are bothered by the slight inaccuracy that it isn't a picture
taken of him.

Either way, he _took_ the picture. He _took_ one of the most famous pictures.

If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil
Armstrong", who cares? Have you ever seen a caption which says that it is Neil
Armstrong? I haven't. People just assume it is because he is the best known
since he was the first man on the moon.

~~~
batista
> _If the caption to the picture reads "Buzz Aldrin as captured by Neil
> Armstrong", who cares?_

I _effin_ care. E.g. I want a picture of Neil Armstrong for my article. Not a
picture that _he_ took of somebody else. Not a quick sketch he did of his cat.
I want a picture of HIM, preferably on the moon.

That he "took the picture" is meaningless for the purposes of _showing_ the
man in action. If I was writing about Knuth I wouldn't post a picture of
McCarthy he took and caption it "John McCarthy as captured by D. Knuth".

As someone who used to do photo editing for a newspaper, I assure you that
this is Photo Editing 101. Your arguments are loco.

~~~
jyap
Find me a credible publication that will:

A) Use the mentioned picture as the centerpiece to their article.

B) State incorrectly that it is a picture of Neil Armstrong.

Neither is likely to happen. It is just a common misconception that it is a
picture of Neil Armstrong since it is the most famous picture of the mission
and because people know Neil Armstrong. People see the picture and assume it
is Neil Armstrong. Credible publications won't use the picture.

The parent article makes out that there aren't many pictures of Neil
Armstrong. They will most likely use the one mentioned taken by Buzz Aldrin or
this one:

[http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/20...](http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-
images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/25/1345929814833/Neil-Armstrong-008.jpg)

~~~
lkbm
The Atlantic doesn't state who it is, but Aldrin's name appears nowhere in the
text: [http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/neil-
arm...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/08/neil-
armstrong/261575/)

~~~
Hovertruck
The file's name is also "Neil_armstrong.jpg"

------
pfedor
I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903 (and
many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was
because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black sky
to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary. You can
always add more black, unlike the rocks or equipment or whatever which was
captured in the bottom of the picture.

BTW in AS11-40-5903 they took it too far and cut Buzz Aldrin's antenna.

~~~
batista
> _I always assumed that the poor composition of the original AS11-40-5903
> (and many other photos from the Moon which suffer from the same problem) was
> because every pixel was precious, so they didn't want the uniformly black
> sky to take up any larger fraction of the image area than necessary._

It wasn't pixels -- it was emulsion film.

Nor was it that precious. What would they do with a photo of more
rock/equipment and less space?

I guess the photos was more for a documentation/publicity use than of actual
scientific interest.

~~~
brudgers
The film was precious. Every gram of film had to be brought back into orbit by
_Eagle_ in lieu of some onboard instrument, backup system, additional fuel and
air or sample from the surface.

~~~
batista
A kilogram of film is still too much film. And they have too many useless and
bad photos taken so it doesn't seem good pictures was their priority.

~~~
brudgers
In my work, I shoot a lot of photographs when I visit a project site during
design and construction. My priority is not composition or aesthetics, it's
documentation so that I can answer questions which I didn't know I would have
when I went so that I can avoid another trip.

They sent pilots, to the moon. They had a couple of hours. That's all. Film
allowed them to collect a large amount of data which hundreds or thousands of
scientists could later analyze.

Some rocks are more interesting than others. But it's better to have the
scientists decide which to take a closer look at on the next landing.

------
jahewson
Hey, it actually is a photo of Neil Armstrong on the moon - you can just about
see him taking the photo, reflected in Buzz's sun visor :)

~~~
jpdoctor
I concur! In fact, I think this would have made an excellent release of the
"first man on the moon" photo; It's just a recrop of their original:
<http://i.imgur.com/PyiKT.jpg>, so no disallowed manipulation.

~~~
keithpeter
Nice idea for my wallpaper (1080p) for next week.

I fiddled the curves a bit on the inset photo, but still need to do something
with that blue/violet cast on the bottom right.

[http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/armstrongs-picture-of-
aldrin...](http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8403291/armstrongs-picture-of-aldrin-
cropped-inset-1920.jpg)

------
teebs
Pardon my ignorance, but why is it so horrible to use a photo manipulated by
the source--especially if you know exactly how and why it was manipulated, and
you still have access to the original? This manipulation seems rather benign,
too. Why must it be "removed from your photo archives"?

~~~
nicholassmith
Journalistic ethics basically.

~~~
thinkingisfun
Generally yeah, but in this case? If they 100% knew for a fact that the sky
above his head was black, then adding some black padding is fine. Maybe not
from a photography standpoint, but from a journalistic one? Come on..

~~~
nicholassmith
This is why it's so contentious, it improves the photo but it's no longer
original. Oddly from a photographic side that's fine, but photo journalistic
standpoint it's no longer the moment that was capture but a modified version.
It's a thorny issue with grey areas.

~~~
001sky
"Burning" the edges [of the final print] to the extent it mimics the "deep
black" of space, is in fact faithful to the scene. PJ's "Burn" the edges of
news images everyday. That is, they "darken" the edges to create relative
contast to the focal point they wish to show. This is not deemed unethical,
but rather legitmatley "expressive". The terminology comes from film emulsion
days, when the overexposre of the positive image to (unfiltered) light, would
darkens the photosensive elemnts of the (white) paper. The fact that this was
shot originally in MF film, makes me feel better about this, for some reason.
The original negative would have been "clear" in this area.

~~~
nicholassmith
It does differ from publication to publication, but it depends on how much of
a stickler for rules and ethics they are.

I'm also alright with it, they had to do what they had to do to make it work
and make it clear.

------
nrbafna
This is from a reddit ama where the OP has worked through Apollo 1-14. He
claims it was Neil in the photo -
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xove1/iama_97_year_old_that_worked_apollo_missions_1/c5o9ph6)

~~~
dustincoates
There were a ton of huge inaccuracies in that AMA. Here's a few things that
were pointed out to be wrong:
[http://es.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/xp6il/methusela1915_i...](http://es.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/xp6il/methusela1915_is_a_97_year_old_who_worked_apollo/)

I wouldn't rely on that for any real information.

EDIT: Not to mention the fact that the suit says "E Aldrin" on it. I have a
hard time believing they swapped suits, too.

~~~
defen
Not vouching one way or the other for the AMA, but he claims that Armstrong is
in the "astronaut saluting the flag" picture
([http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salu...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Buzz_salutes_the_U.S._Flag.jpg)),
not the one where you can see the "E Aldrin" name tag.

~~~
dustincoates
Yeah, that's a good point, but he also says this: "So that's who I said it
was. When Aldrin came back, he told me no, first thing Armstrong did was pass
the camera back to me."

It's still hard for me to believe they were passing the camera back and forth.
That, with all the other inaccuracies, lead me to believe it's fake. Why
someone would purposefully fake that I don't know...

------
jakejake
I don't really have a problem with the photo as long as the caption doesn't
say it's Neil. It's a historic moment that everybody should recognize. He is
known for this event and even took the photo.

As for the doctoring, I don't find it unethical. I don't have a problem
straitening a crooked photo, adjusting the contrast, etc to make the photo
visually appealing. That's not the same as adding a person. I understand
journalists want "the truth" but with film there are so many artistic
decisions made when processing a photo anyway. Maybe the truth is that is was
very dark or bright. Should darkroom manipulation be skipped and the photo be
blown out or solid black because that's the real truth? If there was a scratch
on the negative I don't mind if it's repaired as long as it isn't maliciously
trying to trick us.

~~~
archgoon
The 'doctoring' is only slightly above the level of adding a border around the
image. If this is doctoring, then all Mars photos's are 'doctored', as they're
stitched together from much smaller photos.

~~~
jakejake
I have to agree. If they had added the earth or some detail which wasn't in
the original photo then I might feel differently. But just adding some black
to fix the composition issues seems ok to me.

------
anuraj
Why is it that nobody could land on moon after 1972? After all cold war was
still on. All moon landings happened between 1969-72. It is really
unbelievable that US would forego such an advanced technology that nobody else
had. There are many unanswered questions here.

~~~
derleth
> Why is it that nobody could land on moon after 1972?

Lack of political will to fund it. Funding wars was more important than
funding science.

> There are many unanswered questions here.

Sadly, no. We know precisely what happened, and that's the depressing part.

~~~
anuraj
Has US ever been in an either or situation? Defence budget in 2010 is $680B,
and cost of a moon landing is $18B in 2010 dollars. Given that both are
deficit funded, and dollar can be printed at will, is this convincing?

~~~
derleth
> Given that both are deficit funded, and dollar can be printed at will

This bespeaks a gross lack of knowledge about how a modern economy works.

~~~
anuraj
Perhaps you may find it gross to understand why US has been able to spend well
beyond its means - Does dollar denominated trade ring a bell?

------
gwern
> Despite the vast attention paid to the astronauts’ psychological profiles
> and their ability to work in teams, the Apollo 11 crew verged on the
> dysfunctional. While Armstrong and Aldrin didn’t quite match Stoppard’s
> Scott and Oates, there was a fierce behind-the-scenes battle between them to
> be first to set foot on the Moon. Early plans were for Aldrin, as module
> pilot, to step out first, but one version reported by Smith has it that
> Armstrong, as mission commander, lobbied more vigorously than Aldrin, and
> Nasa backed him up because he would be ‘better equipped to handle the
> clamour when he got back’ and, more mundanely, because his seat in the lunar
> module was closer to the door. Aldrin paid Armstrong back by taking no
> photographs of him on the Moon: the only manually taken lunar image of the
> First Man on the Moon is in one of many pictures Armstrong snapped of
> Aldrin, showing himself reflected in the visor of Aldrin’s spacesuit. Asked
> about this omission later, Aldrin lamely replied: ‘My fault, perhaps, but we
> had never simulated this in training.’ Later, Aldrin put it about that
> Armstrong’s First Sentence might have been a bureaucratic concoction.

[http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n17/steven-shapin/what-did-you-
expe...](http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n17/steven-shapin/what-did-you-expect)

------
wyclif
This Warrior of a Dead World: Gene Wolfe's literary portrait of Neil Armstrong
[http://silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-
warrior-o...](http://silkandhornheresy.blogspot.com/2012/08/this-warrior-of-
dead-world-gene-wolfes.html)

------
darkstalker
In this photo:
[http://apple.copydesk.org/uploads/2012/08/120826ArmstrongLem...](http://apple.copydesk.org/uploads/2012/08/120826ArmstrongLem.jpg)

How come the flag is waving in a environment with no atmosphere ?

~~~
iwwr
<http://astroprofspage.com/archives/162>

tl;dr the flag had embedded wires to keep it unfurled, also the pole was
flexible and springy, it kept wobbling after it was planted in the ground

------
flyinRyan
Because it's hard to find anything on the moon. Where would you look? Plus
photos will be much lighter on the moon so a little solar breeze would
probably send the photo flying for weeks.

------
dsr12
very insightful article. Do newspapers refuse to publish handout pictures that
were manipulated by the source even if there was no wrong intention?

~~~
erez
Here's a very comprehensive archive of images that have been manipulated by
the source, or by the publisher: <http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-
history/>

------
tommy88
idiots, its all staged moon stuff, just like 9-11 was phoney video... hence
the "september clues documentary"... go look it up and watch it you idiots

------
mukaiji
cue in the obnoxious conspiracy theorists...

------
tommy88
idiots go watch SEPTEMBER CLUES DOCUMENTARY already

------
monsterix
Well that's a very interesting article to bring out facts. There are at least
a billion people out there who still think this guy:
<http://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/AS11-40-5903HR.jpg> is Neil Armstrong. Also
there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on moon.

Darn the fluff, get the truth. Upvoted.

~~~
wazoox
> _Also there is another half-a-billion or so which thinks man never landed on
> moon._

Citation needed. It looks to me like only a small gang of wingnuts are part of
the "moon landing conspiration believers" (I never met one). Like s slight
portion of those believing that 9/11 was a CIA/Israeli job, or that there
isn't any biological evolution.

~~~
TheTruthIsHere
Obviously you live in US, get your information from mainstream media (instead
of doing your own research on the Web) and belong to the upper middle class.
That's in my humble experience the only type of guy, who would never meet
anyone disagreeing with government propaganda.

In Latin America, East Europe, Arabic countries, Russia and Japan ~90% of the
people I talked to believe 9/11 was an inside job.

As for the moon landings - I'm one of those conspiracy believers. I've looked
at what NASA&Co has to say and it's far from convincing. Here's a good site
IMHO proving Armstrong and the other 20 astronauts never left Earth orbit:
<http://www.davesweb.cnchost.com/Apollo4.html> .

~~~
quesera
Actually, my dad worked on the mission in Cocoa Beach. The real problem was
that they sent the lander to Mars, not the moon. The real concern at the time
was the Tycho Monolith, remember, so although the mission was originally
intended for the moon, JFK authorized some changes to suit McNamara's DoD. Big
change, yes, but obviously necessary for Homeland Security.

You're right that some of the photos were doctored -- good work! The primary
purpose of all of the Photoshop work was to remove the red hues from the
ground. Some of the backgrounds were reused, of course. That wasn't uncommon
back then. And of course the constellations that are thousands of light years
away would have looked distorted, so they had to be removed.

But you're wrong about the framing and focus problem. While it turns out to be
impossible for a geometrically-inclined engineer to aim a camera without a
viewfinder, NASA was able to work with Polaroid to invent a fixed focus lens,
which they later commercialized as the Brownie.

Great research! That davesweb guy does good work. It's too bad that the govt
can't acknowledge the hard work folks like him have put in. It's just still
too sensitive. My Dad never should have told me, but you know how people get
when they're old.

Oh, this goes with saying I guess, but they never did find the monolith. So
when Bush gets his colony on Mars obviously that will be priority number one.

------
hastur
Because it's all a conspiracy. There isn't and never was a moon.

See here a British youth journalist challenge Buzz Aldrin about it:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kKFYTBo6kA>

~~~
sp332
I prefer this brief interview about the "hoax"
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KgdehBBsw&t=4m20s](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KgdehBBsw&t=4m20s)

~~~
xefer
I love this video. Aldrin was a test pilot for crying out loud. They could
have used his brass balls in that scene from Glengarry Glen Ross. Did that
dope really think he was going to intimidate him?

