Possibly one of the most famous Moon moments, after Neil Armstrong's "One small step." After returning to the LM from the abortive trip to Cone Crater, Alan Shepard retrieved a six-iron head from his gear and attached it to a sample collector handle. He then dropped a golf ball to the ground and swung the makeshift club one-handed. He missed. His second swing made contact, but the ball shanked. Fortunately, Shepard had brought a second golf ball, and his third swing made good contact. As the ball flew away, he called out, "Miles and miles and miles!"
Like Shepard's, my first attempt at this shot shanked. Instead of focusing on the golf ball and letting the astronauts blur out, I went for the hyperfocal distance. But after setting up the shot, I didn't like the composition and moved the ball and camera without rechecking my depth-of-field preview button, so both astronauts and ball are blurry. I didn't figure out the blunder until I developed the film, at which point it was too late to re-shoot. So, since I was scanning the pictures anyway, I used Photoshop and a different picture of a golf ball to "repair" the botched shot. I feel strongly that this level of digital manipulation requires disclosure. (And I deliberately didn't try to make the manipulation seamless.)
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Last updated 9 March 2004.
All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless
otherwise noted
Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.