New Work: Building NASA’s Future

One of the important benefits of having a rep (thanks LL!) is being able to receive assignments even when you are incredibly disconnected from the world (like say on a yacht sailing the Galapagos). Later once I did get the details of a feature for Technology Review in Cape Canaveral, FL to photograph NASA’s Ares 1-X rocket program I was beyond stoked. Photographs aside, getting access to check out the Kennedy Space Center (where I had last been as a kid on a class field trip) is just amazing and it was a real treat to get the full-on tour of the launch pads and vehicle assembly building.

Our mission was to photograph the final stages of the rocket assembly (there are a LOT of rules governing photography with NASA as you can imagine… and it really punishes both the client and NASA because there is so much more that they could be doing to get how amazing their entire universe is out there) as well as to photograph Ares 1-X deputy manager Jon Cowart. Because we couldn’t photograph anyone working, or anything being moved, or with any lights (damn) of any kind, or anything with any action in it I had a hard time trying to realize the vast scale and mission. But again it was just really friggin’ cool.

Jon was a gem to work with and even gave me a hilarious Captain Morgan impression (I love a subject who thinks that if they do something real quick I’ll miss it). The real star of the show however was the V.A.B. itself, one of the world’s largest buildings (4th, by volume). To walk inside a 525-foot open steel structure is cool, but one that is also filled with rad space vehicle parts its indescribable. Click here for a 180-degree vertically stitched images of the V.A.B. main hall.

Many thanks to NASA, Jon Cowart, and Lee Caulfield at Technology Review for connecting me with such a badass assignment and experience. And here’s one last image that I liked, looking straight up (from ground level) to the roof of the V.A.B. at one of the massive cranes (250 tons max!) used to lift and stack (everything is done vertically, which is mind-boggling) the shuttles and rockets (the nose of the Ares 1-X is at top right) of the NASA space program.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 9:49 pm and is filed under New Work, Portraits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.