A List
10/6/03
STOP-ACTION PHOTOS EXHIBITED IN SLU GALLERY
CANTON – "STOP!," an exhibition of stop-action and multiple-flash
photographs by Harold E. "Doc" Edgerton, will be in the Richard F.
Brush Art Gallery from October 20 through December 13.
Edgerton's well-known images of milk-drop "coronets," splashing
water, curling smoke, football players, golfers, circus-stunt performers,
rodeo riders, ice skaters, jugglers, drum majorettes, rope-skippers,
orchestra conductors, dancers, bullets (shooting through hot air, apples,
bananas, light bulbs, rubber, playing cards, balloons, soap bubbles,
Plexiglas, copper wire, string and steel), hummingbirds, bats and dogs
all reveal the movement of matter and objects through space at delirious
speeds. Edgerton documented the velocity of dynamite-cap particles, for
example, exploding at 10 times the speed of sound with photographs that
were exposed at 1/1,000,000 of a second, as well as the backspin of a
golf ball upon impact with a driver (at approximately 2,000 revolutions
per minute) versus a seven-iron (at approximately 10,000 revolutions
per minute).
Edgerton earned master's and doctoral degrees in electrical
engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he became
a member of the MIT faculty in 1931. He created the first electronic
stroboscope, a precursor to modern flash photography, that could "stop
motion" on film. The use of a stroboscope allowed exposure times to decrease
from hundredths to millionths of a second, freezing motion in crisp
detail. Later in the 1980's, Edgerton experimented with "camera-less"
photography, capturing fragile marine microorganisms as they rested
directly on a piece of film. After his retirement in 1968, he continued
to work at the MIT lab, known as "Strobe Alley," five or six days a
week until his death in 1990.
For more information or to arrange individual or group tours,
contact the gallery at 315-229-5174.
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The Richard F. Brush Art Gallery
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