We Choose to Go to The Moon
About the Artist
David Burnett is a photojournalist with more than four decades of work covering the news, the people, and visual tempo of our age. He is co-founder of the New York based photojournalism agency Contact Press Images, now entering its 40th year. In a recent issue of American Photo magazine, Burnett was named one of the “100 Most Important People in Photography.”
Burnett launched his career as an intern at Time magazine in 1967 before covering the Vietnam War for Life magazine. His work has brought him to more than 75 countries for publications including Time, Life, Fortune, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Sunday Magazine, and many others. He has been honored by awards including the Picture of the Year Competition and World Press Photo. David received the prestigious Robert Capa Award from the Overseas Press Club in 1974. He has thrice been a juror in the prestigious World Press Photo contest in Amsterdam, chairing the board in both 1999 and 2011. In 2007 he taught at the World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class, leading ten emerging photographers in their quest for new direction.
He is the author of E-motion: The Spirit of Sport (1997); Soul Rebel, An Intimate Portrait of Bob Marley (2009); 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World with an introduction by Christiane Amanpour (2010); and L’Homme Sans Gravité (2015).
At the time, 22-year-old, David Burnett was a photographer working for TIME Magazine out of the Miami bureau. Burnett’s coverage region included the area off Florida’s Space Coast where the Apollo XI rocket would launch. In May of 1969, he had photographed the launch of Apollo X as a warm-up and two months later he went on to record the launch of Apollo XI carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins whose mission was to land and walk on the moon.It was David’s idea to record the events for TIME by turning his camera away from the rocket and focus on the ‘space’ that the visiting tourists, from near and far, had staked out to celebrate and witness the moments leading up to and during the Apollo XI rocket launch.
“Looking back on fifty years, there are many things which come to mind; the clothing, antiquated film cameras, transistor radios, enormous automobiles, courtesy and attitudes, patience while waiting at a gas station in the middle of the night to use a solitary restroom, and the absence of cell phones!
As much as Apollo XI became a lodestone for human endeavors in space, the massive gathering that represented the American clan: present and in the moment, there to observe the launching. These pictures leave us with a snapshot of what the country’s tempo was like at that time and how man’s quest for space could captivate, amaze, delight and cause a nation to hold its breath looking skyward.”
