NASA's Ear

This is a photo of a 70 meter NASA deep space tracking antenna. Its mission is to track manmade objects moving at thousands of miles an hour billions of miles away. How does one take a photograph of an object performing an action that cannot be seen?

The photo succeeds in this presentation in a number of ways. Had the photographer placed the antenna in the center of the photo and captured it head on, the resulting image would have been a symmetrical assembly of geometric shapes lost in a desert background. It may have been a compelling image, but it would have lacked the sense of purpose contained in this photo.

Capturing the dish at an off center angle creates several lines for the viewer’s eye to follow. There is the line along the oval shape of the dish running from the upper left corner to the lower right. This line frames the large area of negative space filled with thin clouds, deep blue sky, and the night’s first stars. The other, possibly more important, line leads from the base of the tower and follows the direction of the antenna’s aim directly into the sky. The off-center presentation of the dish in the left third of the frame not only enhances the antenna’s position as the primary focus, but serves to open the image to the expansive background. This effect is also complemented by the horizon’s placement well below the center of the photo.

The brightly lit antenna contrasts strongly with the black of the desert landscape, again drawing attention to the dish as the primary subject matter. Another pleasing contrast is the dark hills on the horizon against the last of the light in the sky.

The rotating base of the tower is a visually engaging collection of repeating geometric shapes and straight and curved lines. The repeating shapes provide a small area of intense texture juxtaposed against the softness of the sky and the emptiness of the black featureless desert.

The elements of the photo work together to convey the message that this enormous overtly artificial object is aimed at a point in the blackness of space that we can’t see and communicating with crafts at distances we can barely comprehend.

Photo found at:

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/antennas/70m.html