Biography
Well-known for his scientific advancements and his photographic art, Harold Edgerton proved that the two disciplines are more intertwined than we tend to believe. As a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Edgerton was a pioneer in stroboscopic photography, the technique of capturing and depicting moments of intense action and movement as if they were frozen in time. The stroboscope works in a comparable way to the modern-day camera flash, emitting intense bursts of light that last no longer than 1/100,000th of a second. Combined with a camera that has a quick shutter speed–Edgerton also built his own camera to keep up with his stroboscopic advancements–the technology could capture highly-defined images of athletes, bullets piercing apples, and the atomic explosions. Although Edgerton developed the stroboscope and related equipment for scientific inquiry, like photographic data for the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear tests or the side-scan sonar technology used to scan the sea floor for wrecks, his images were lauded as feats of technical prowess and as pieces of modern art.