The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes

Acknowledgments

In the spring of 1981, America returned to manned space flight. I was assigned to shoot the first launch and landing of the space shuttle. I had no idea how to do it.

I was not alone. There were a bunch of us young pup photogs going down to Kennedy Space Center to cover this big roman candle heading into heavens, and none of us knew squat about shooting a launch. The last manned American space flight had taken place 20 years previous, and during that hiatus, there was about as much photographic interest in the space program as there was in covering meetings of the regulatory board of the local utility company. In other words, zero.

So we went to lunch with Ralph. Ralph Morse, longtime Life staffer and dean of American space ...