Moon Bug

The other day we watched a documentary about Steve Pyke, who wanted to take photos of the first handful of men that got to walk on the moon. I found it really interesting how he had gone to so much effort to take pictures of these old aged astronauts who seemed that they had past there time. But as he is going around America and photographing these men, it's quite sad because they seem a bit like yesterdays news as they have grown old and are now living normal pensioner lives. But they are a huge part of historic events as they were the first set of people willing to risked there lives knowing what had happened in the disastrous flight of Apollo 1, and that must have been a really scary thing to do. 

I really like the way the pictures look, with the faces emerging from the darkness and how the features of the mens faces are really defined with the type of lighting and camera settings. For my portrait project I would like to try out this lighting technique that Pyke has used because it looks really dramatic, and we are getting professional prints developed and i think all the black ink engulfing the faces will hopefully look really good. Another touch that Pyke added was he took a photo of the men's feet, I thought this was really nice as it was an obvious connection to them walking on the moon.
  

Also when he was photographing the men he made them really relaxed by going to there homes where they were comfy or if they wanted to go outside like one man did, who was seen as a bit of a free spirit he did so. With him doing this they were able to have a chat about there experiences and him stories, which bought out there personalities. And Pyke was constantly aware of what there faces were doing. So if they were about to laugh he had already pressed the shutter. Because of this I personally think he managed to capture the personalities of the young astronauts that they use to be.

Also with all of these images you can't tell if they were taken outside or in someones house. He has managed to make them all look like he has taken them in the studio.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=steve+pyke+photographer&espv=210&es_sm=91&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=ySOWUq69E4mUhQfEqICIAg&sqi=2&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1001&bih=513#es_sm=91&espv=210&q=steve+pyke+photographer+moon+bug&tbm=isch&imgdii=_ 

This link was used for both photos.