HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS OF NATURE

The earliest, as well as some of the most significant photographic discoveries and explorations, were made possible because of what we saw around us. Even the first-ever photograph was made with the camera pointing outside of a window, with the hope to replicate the surrounding buildings and countryside. The natural world, including the one beyond our earthly realm, has inspired generations of photographers to not just be curious of its beauty and the workings of its inhabitants, but also develop ways of rendering them visually. The following pages are a showcase of exactly this, a mix of iconic and influential photographs that instill appreciation and wonder.

An Accidental Discovery

The Horsehead Nebula, one of the most familiar astronomical bodies, was first photographed by William Henry Pickering, at the Harvard Observatory, on 6 February 1888. What’s intriguing though is that the astronomer had no intention of capturing it. The 90-minute exposure was meant to depict the Orion Belt, and it wasn’t until Williamina Fleming observed the strange formation under the first star of Orion’s Belt that anyone understood the significance of the image. She described it as “a large nebulosity, with a semi-circular indentation, intense and well-marked.”

Fleming had been the maid of Edward Charles Pickering, the Director of the Harvard College Observatory (HCO), at the time. After growing tired of the carelessness of his male assistants, he hired her in their place. She was in charge of a large group of women who analysed and computed the data that the Observatory collected, and went on to become the Curator of Astronomical Photos at the HCO. Unfortunately, while Pickering rightfully credited the discovery to Fleming, others didn’t share his sense of integrity and couldn’t stand for a woman to be recognised for her work in the field of astronomy.

A Perfect Landscape from Mars

One could hardly ever imagine that a seemingly bare planet, cloaked in red dust could ever have something truly serene, or even earth–like about it. On 15 April 2015, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover took some time off to observe the sunset, and the images it sent back were stunning. From its location inside the Gale Crater, the rover captured remarkable images of a beautiful blue sunset on Mars. The sun, in the pictures, is a blazing dot, setting over ink-black hills, against grey-blue skies. Curiosity transmitted the pictures back to Earth in B&W using a Bayer matrix, which helped to recreate the original colours of the image.