Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2020/03/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I'm sorry that you were the cause of seperation. On Fri, Mar 6, 2020, 10:10 AM Bill Clough via LUG <lug at leica-users.org> wrote: > Hi there ? > > > One year after the Atomic Energy Commission detonated a nuclear ?device? > a quarter of a mile beneath the salt flats southeast of Carlsbad, N.M., the > press was invited to enter the chamber created by the explosion. > > > Knowing we would have to photograph the inside of a sphere, I borrowed a > Leitz 21mm from a local doctor. > > > It was something like 90 degrees in the shaft that led to the chamber. > Adjacent to the chamber was a separate area where all the cameras had to be > placed for 30 minutes because the temperature inside the chamber was around > 130 degrees. The antechamber allowed the cameras to adjust to the heat. A > camera brought from the shaft directly into the chamber immediately would > fog up. > > > Each photographer was allowed only 15 minutes. The AEC folks feared > dehydration. > > > The hero of the assignment was an AEC photographer who illuminated the > entire chamber with Sylvania Sun Guns. It was all indirect lighting; not > one Sun Gun was in sight. > > > I set up the tripod, took a light meter reading and realized it was like > photographing the interior of a cave. There was no sense of scale. I asked > the technician assigned to monitor ? and to assist ? each photographer if > he would stand on a rock and look up. After studying the overhead for > possible falling rocks, > > he agreed. > > > The photographer who was in line behind me was no less that LIFE staffer > J. R. Eyerman. > > > Later, when LIFE published his photograph, I was delighted to find he > used the same man doing the same thing on the same rock. > > > I shot both color and black-and-white. After the slides were processed, > someone stole them. > > > That?s not quite the whole story. A year after the assignment, I ran > into the doctor at the local Leica camera store. > > > ?It?s the strangest thing,? he said. ?Every element in that 21mm > separated. The repairmen at E. Leitz say they have never seen anything like > it.? > > > I never told him. > > > > http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Bill1941/RETROSPECT/Project+Gnome+Crater++1962+-+00204.jpg.html > > > ?Bill > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information