Space Mission
Gemini IV, 3-7 June 1965
Photographer
James Mc Divitt
Photo Description
Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based Kodak paper
8 h × 10 w in (20 × 25 cm); Numbered to upper margin ‘NASA S-65-30549’ with ‘A Kodak Paper’ watermarks to verso.
Essay
Not only did James McDivitt photograph the first American EVA with great skill, but he also took the amazing first portrait of an astronaut in space, showing an elated Ed White back in the spacecraft after the first US spacewalk.
McDivitt used the Zeiss Contarex 35mm camera loaded with space-qualified color film that White had carried to take photographs from outside the spaceship.
Tragically, astronaut White died two years later, with astronauts Virgil “Gus” Grissom and Roger Chaffee, when fire swept the interior of an Apollo spacecraft at Cape Kennedy.
“I was the happiest man in the world that day,” said McDivitt, “except possibly for Ed.” White admitted, “I felt so good I didn’t know whether to hop, skip, jump, or walk on my hands.”
(National Geographic, September 1965, pg. 447)