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[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 1
[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 2
[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 3
[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 4
[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969 image 5
Lot 249

[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD
Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969

FOR ALL MANKIND: THE ARTISTIC LEGACY OF EARLY SPACE EXPLORATION: Victor Martin-Malburet Collection
14 – 28 April 2025, 12:00 CEST
Paris, Avenue Hoche

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[Apollo 11] THE FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OF A HUMAN ON THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER WORLD

Neil Armstrong, 16-24 July 1969

Printed 1969.

Vintage chromogenic print on fibre-based Kodak paper [NASA image AS11-40-5872].
With "A Kodak Paper" watermark on the reverse (issued by NASA).

20.3 x 25.4 cm. (8 x 10 in.)

Historical context
The first photograph of a human standing on another world. For Buzz Aldrin, stepping onto the sunlit Moon felt like crossing a barrier into another dimension. This historic photograph, taken by Neil Armstrong as part of his mission checklist to document Aldrin's deployment of the Solar Wind Experiment, captures the profound significance of humanity's transformation into an interplanetary species.

Footnotes

Many of the pictures taken by Armstrong will always be considered as classics of lunar surface photography. Here, rim-lit by the Sun to the left, Aldrin unfurls the aluminium sheet of the Solar Wind Experiment; behind him is the Lunar Module. Footprints can be seen in the foreground, also the linear tracks which were formed by the cable of the lunar surface TV camera. The shapes of light on the left were caused by the Sun shining almost directly into the camera lens. (Arnold, plate 17)

"Stepping out of the LM's shadow was a shock. One moment I was in total darkness, the next in the Sun's hot floodlight. From the ladder I had seen all the sunlit moonscape beyond our shadow but with no atmosphere, there was absolutely no refracted light around me. I stuck my hand out past the shadow's edge into the Sun, and it was like punching through a barrier into another dimension."
—Buzz Aldrin (from his 1973 book Return to Earth)

Literature
National Geographic, December 1969, pp. 770-771
LIFE, 11 August 1969
LIFE, 8 August 1969, p. 24
Moon: Man's Greatest Adventure, Thomas, ed., pp. 196-197
Images from Space, The Camera in Orbit, Arnold, pl. 17

Watch more
CLICK HERE: Apollo 11 Moonwalk Part 1 of 4

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