From 1961 until perpetuity.
Photography has become a crucial technique for documenting the history of mankind. The early exploration of space is one such historical event, unrivaled among humanity’s achievements. Fortunately, the skill and daring of a very particular group of ‘photographers’, the Apollo astronauts, were able to bring back beautiful, moving and instantly recognizable images. It is these images that created a new understanding of what it means to be human, living on this planet and its relation to the sun and the stars.
Apollo VII-XVII
A couple of years before bringing Apollo to your home in the form of beautiful museum quality photographic prints, a group of four space and photography enthusiasts from Amsterdam came together to create a book about the first missions to the Moon. These astronauts are often recognized for their scientific, adventurous, and heroic endeavors, but we wanted to highlight their significant contributions to photography as well.
We searched extensively for a book that featured these spectacular images, but all the books we encountered fell short of our expectations. They had either poor print quality, small image size, or text covering all of the pictures. This frustration ultimately led us to question "Why not create the book we desire ourselves?"
We searched extensively for a book that featured these spectacular images, but all the books we encountered fell short of our expectations. They had either poor print quality, small image size, or text covering all of the pictures. This frustration ultimately led us to question "Why not create the book we desire ourselves?"
A meticulous process
After 18 months and 16,000 film scans, we finally created a 320-page book called "Apollo VII-XVII" that features a balance of well-known and lesser-known photographs from the 10 manned Apollo missions.
This book presents 225 of these photographs in large print format. Restoring imagery from the original scans of 70mm film rolls the astronauts shot during the program. The book contains a variety of images, ranging from shots taken through the windows of the Command Module of the specular views found on the Earth’s surface, surreal and abstract black and white photography of the lunar surface, to photographs of each of the 12 men in their space suits walking on the surface of the moon.
The book also has a unique and exclusive short essay written by Apollo 7 astronaut, Walt Cunningham, who flew on the very first manned Apollo mission. The essay focuses on his pioneering experimentation and testing of the Hasselblad camera that flew with him on board. It was his endeavors that created the foundations for his fellow Apollo astronauts.
Additionally, we visited the Hasselblad archives in Sweden, allowing us to delve into the company's collaboration with NASA engineers to tell their story in the book on how they developed the pioneering camera technology used by the astronauts to capture these incredible images that changed the world.
This book presents 225 of these photographs in large print format. Restoring imagery from the original scans of 70mm film rolls the astronauts shot during the program. The book contains a variety of images, ranging from shots taken through the windows of the Command Module of the specular views found on the Earth’s surface, surreal and abstract black and white photography of the lunar surface, to photographs of each of the 12 men in their space suits walking on the surface of the moon.
The book also has a unique and exclusive short essay written by Apollo 7 astronaut, Walt Cunningham, who flew on the very first manned Apollo mission. The essay focuses on his pioneering experimentation and testing of the Hasselblad camera that flew with him on board. It was his endeavors that created the foundations for his fellow Apollo astronauts.
Additionally, we visited the Hasselblad archives in Sweden, allowing us to delve into the company's collaboration with NASA engineers to tell their story in the book on how they developed the pioneering camera technology used by the astronauts to capture these incredible images that changed the world.
The good old days’
With no Lunar Module to fly on the mission, along with his other tasks, lunar Module Pilot, Walt Cunningham took nearly 70 percent of the photographs brought back from this pioneering mission. The lessons he learned had a significant impact on the future of space photography in the Apollo project. Although Walt said he thought of himself as a physicist and fighter pilot, rather than a photographer, he graciously accepted to write this introduction about his personal experiences and the photographic challenges and problems faced during the Apollo 7 mission. Here is a brief extract from his story:
"Photography is but one area of activity that has shown amazing improvements as space exploration has evolved over the past 50 years. In the ‘good old days’ of the Apollo program, we started improving the capability of doing space photography. We had the pleasure of carrying a Hasselblad 500C camera modified for use in space with an 80mm lens and nine magazines holding about 500 frames of 70mm film...
...We trained with the Hasselblad camera for two years prior to our first Apollo launch. We used it at home and in our office but we also carried it with us when flying our T-38s around the country for training and engineering activities. It was not a particularly conveniently sized camera for our small T-38 cockpits but we did enjoy this part of our training activities...
...It was a real privilege and honor to be able to go up there and bring back some of these images that I can share with you and the rest of the world.
Walt Cunningham
October 2016
"Photography is but one area of activity that has shown amazing improvements as space exploration has evolved over the past 50 years. In the ‘good old days’ of the Apollo program, we started improving the capability of doing space photography. We had the pleasure of carrying a Hasselblad 500C camera modified for use in space with an 80mm lens and nine magazines holding about 500 frames of 70mm film...
...We trained with the Hasselblad camera for two years prior to our first Apollo launch. We used it at home and in our office but we also carried it with us when flying our T-38s around the country for training and engineering activities. It was not a particularly conveniently sized camera for our small T-38 cockpits but we did enjoy this part of our training activities...
...It was a real privilege and honor to be able to go up there and bring back some of these images that I can share with you and the rest of the world.
Walt Cunningham
October 2016
Brought back to life
The restoration and color grading process for the book took nearly a year, meticulously enhancing the images to their former brilliance. Removing the scratches and damage caused by the lunar dust to the special camera film of the Hasselblad cameras used in the spacecraft and lunar surface.
The result is a large number of previously unseen Apollo photographs with unparalleled detail, color, and print quality.
As we worked on restoring these photographs, we realized that they should not only be displayed in a beautifully bound coffee table book, but also proudly displayed on walls. That's why we created Apollo Photo Prints, making the highest quality Apollo imagery for a fair price available to anyone, anywhere in the world.
The result is a large number of previously unseen Apollo photographs with unparalleled detail, color, and print quality.
As we worked on restoring these photographs, we realized that they should not only be displayed in a beautifully bound coffee table book, but also proudly displayed on walls. That's why we created Apollo Photo Prints, making the highest quality Apollo imagery for a fair price available to anyone, anywhere in the world.
A journey to the stars
After the release of our book on the Apollo VII-XVII missions, we decided to explore other NASA missions for iconic images. We chose the Voyager mission for its ambitious task of transforming low resolution black and white images into high resolution, printable images for the first time for our new book "Voyager: Photographs from Humanity's Greatest Journey". The photographs in this book of the outermost planets even amazed the Voyager Program scientists and engineers who were involved in the original image capturing process. We aim to offer these photographs as framed and premium photo prints on site in the coming months.
Our goal is to continue restoring and showcasing forgotten space photographs and stories. If you have any suggestions for photographs or missions, please let us know.
Our goal is to continue restoring and showcasing forgotten space photographs and stories. If you have any suggestions for photographs or missions, please let us know.