Michael Reale
Everyone has a camera—in their pocket, purse, on their shoulder, or in a camera bag. Everywhere we go today, even for space travelers. But that hasn’t always been the case, down here or up there.
On Saturday, Oct. 10, Charles Walker will be the SaddleBrooke Photography Club’s guest speaker and will present a history, in words and images, of photography in space. He will speak about the people, the equipment, the techniques, interesting circumstances, and, of course, many of the images produced. Charlie was the first commercial industry astronaut flying aboard NASA space shuttle missions. He flew on three missions in 1984 and 1985.
His talk will begin with images taken automatically onboard the earliest rockets and satellites in space. Years later, with people onboard, handheld cameras—still, motion, film, digital, and video—came into use. He will survey the hardware taken to space over the last six decades. Equipment astronauts employed advanced slowly until recent years and long-term occupancy of the space station. Today a quality array of digital still and videographic hardware is clicking away two hundred miles above us.
Charlie will discuss the Hubble Space Telescope and its kin, as well as robotic space telescopes and planetary exploration spacecraft that through the same period of years carried more sophisticated imaging systems. These instruments have given us most of the popular images of in-space photography. He’ll present us with evidence that we humans, personally wielding our glass and electro-mechanical eyes, have created lesser-known imagery of equal beauty and intellectual significance too.
The SaddleBrooke Photography Club holds its General Meetings on the second Saturday of each month at 9 a.m. in the Coyote Room of the HOA One Clubhouse, though we usually gather at 8:30 a.m. to socialize, Guests are welcome to participate in a meeting. Check our website, photosb.org, for more information.