NASA photographer talks about 29 years of filming for stars

You may not know the name of Bill Ingalls, but you've probably seen some of his work already. Its story is written through the stars, lit by rocket fire and illuminated by the moon.

In 29 years as a contract photographer for NASA, which marks its 60th anniversary on Monday, Ingalls has witnessed some of the most spectacular moments in the space agency and captured them so that the world can see them through his goal.

You may remember his photo of International Space Station transiting through the full moon. Or his picture of a ghostly space shuttle Endeavor completes final mission with a soft landing in 2011. Or even a viral image of his camera melted by a grass fire after a SpaceX launch earlier this year.

It all started when Ingalls, now 54, did a summer internship at NASA 's communications office in 1987 while he was at the University of California. Waynesburg, near Pittsburgh. "This summer has shown that I can do what I love and combine it with a really compelling, exciting and interesting subject," Ingalls said.

In 1989, Ingalls signed on with NASA as a photography entrepreneur, a trip that led from the mouth of an Alaskan volcano. the flat landscapes of Kazakhstan where the Russian spacecraft Soyuz launches and lands. The following is a transcript of our presentation.

Did you have an interest in space earlier in life?
Ingalls: I was born in the early 60s and I remember being a young boy when we landed on the moon and that it fascinated him like the rest of the world. I was not obsessed with that, but I liked watching spaceflight.

What was your most difficult photographic experience?
Ingalls: For me, there is almost always a challenge, even if it's as simple as a press conference in our auditorium. I consider it a very serious challenge to try to make it interesting, to try to create something unique and attractive.

One of the most important things that I still have to overcome is to better capture people and their true essence, the emotion that accompanies them and the work that they do for NASA. . After witnessing hundreds and hundreds of rocket launches, you begin to wonder who is behind all this.

You dragged helicopters into a volcano. Have you had scary moments?
Ingalls: I'm afraid of heights. It's probably when he's scared the most. The Russians have recently allowed me to ride in some of the lighting towers of the launch pad to be able to install higher cameras.

Have you ever refused a NASA mission?
Ingalls: No. This is usually the opposite. I usually fight for missions to happen.

How does it work as a NASA entrepreneur?
Ingalls: I got to know programs and people. A level of trust has been created between myself, NASA and the photo team I work with. The only difficult question is usually money. We must constantly fight for money to do what we need to do.

Your faded camera has made the news. How was he at the center of a new element?
Ingalls: It's funny how in 29 years of filming, it's the number of people who have known my name. My biggest concern was how NASA and SpaceX would react to this viral situation, and both of them were very kind in realizing that it was just a matter of what was happening sometimes.

It was badly reported at first. Someone said that I put the camera too close to the rocket, which was not true at all. It was actually one of the most distant devices. NASA has fully embraced it and has published a story about it to help clear the air.

Do you still have the camera?
Ingalls: I have it in my office. It smells like campfire.

Do you have a favorite camera right now?
Ingalls: No, really not. Coming from 29 years of filming, I saw the camera technology take off.

I had used to bring a dark room wherever I traveled in the world. I had a small bin containing all my chemicals, a hair dryer and tongs to hang the negatives. Today, my dark room is my laptop and we have good internet connections almost everywhere in the world.

Our firm was mainly filled with Nikon hardware, mainly because we had initially made a good investment in Nikon lenses. I can take out one of our newest cameras and take one of our older lenses while taking pictures.

We also have a lot of Canon hardware now. Recently, we have watched Sony and the cameras without a mirror.

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Have all the technological changes over the years made your job easier or more complicated?
Ingalls: it's double-edged. When I started to do this job, I was not too eager to get pictures out. I could really take my time. With NASA's growing presence on social media and on its website, the pressure has grown to get things moving quickly.

Which applications do you use?
Ingalls: Our current workflow is to unload and use Photo Mechanic to select and find our images and for subtitling. Then we use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to develop. We follow the guidelines of photojournalism for what we do in publishing – just basic cropping, color correction, dodging and burning, and that's about it all.

Are there upcoming missions from NASA that you are looking forward to photographing?
Ingalls: The Soyuz launches and disembarks. My colleagues have helped me with these, but I try to do at least once a year to familiarize myself with the Soyuz launches and maintain my relationships with my Russian colleagues.

In the longer term, I'm really worried about the James Webb Telescope. I have never been to Kourou [in French Guiana]. This will be my first launch from there.

If you had the chance to go into space, would you take it?
Ingalls: Yes, absolutely. I'm probably a bit too big for the Soyuz, but maybe something with the SpaceX Crew Dragon or Boeing's Starliner would work for me. I'm not sure of the landing part, but the launch and being there would be great. It would be fun to find something photographic that would be unique on the space station.

I can not wait to see where NASA is going. We have our eyes on the moon and Mars, and a lot of things are going to happen with that. I would like to be there to document as much as possible.

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