Figure 3
Harold Edgerton
1903-1990,born in Freemont Nebraska
.30 Bullet Piercing an Apple
1964, Dye transfer print, 15 15/16 x 19 15/16
[Figure 3] In 1931, Harold Edgerton, a brilliam scientist and electrical engineer, pioneered the use of the stroboscope to permit the observation of the successive states of fast-moving objects. This technological innovation greatly expanded photography’s reach, as the flasing strobe could momentarily freeze and reveal actions that are beyond the range of ordinary perception.
Edgerton’s artistic and technological contributions are present today in everything from the flash in the most basic camera to the countless stop-motion photographs used in sports journalism. His invention has enables us, as he put it, “to chop up time into little bits and freeze it so that it suits our needs and wishes.”
His photographs depict with great clarity powerful images of things too ephemeral to be visable, like the abstract shapes and consecutive patterns of forms in motion. By focusing on the microscopic and the microsecond, Edgerton profoundly chamged our sense of time and space. Even now when high-speed photography is commonplace, no one has quite surpassed Edgerton in revealing the beauty and wonder underlying the simplest actions.
–Beth Venn and Cathy Kimball
Photograph: ©1998, Whitney Museum of American Art
Artwork © The Harold and Esther Edgerton Family Foundation.