Part C Compare and contrast the details from the image and text. How do details from each medium portray the subject similarly and differently? How do the image and text contribute to readers’ and viewers’ understanding of the subject?

Apollo Astronaut Shares Story of NASA's Earthrise Photo
by NASA (adapted excerpt)

In February, [Major William A.] Anders visited Johnson Space Center for a BBC documentary interview in which he talked about the Apollo 8 mission, its historical significance, his personal experiences during launch and lunar orbit and how he managed to shoot the unforgettable Earthrise photo. During his visit, Anders also paid a rare visit to the Apollo photo lab to open the storage vault where the negative of the Earthrise photo is kept.

Anders said their job was not to look at the Earth, but to simulate a lunar mission. It was not until things had calmed down and they were on their way to the moon that they actually got to look back and take a picture of the Earth as they had left it.

"That's when I was thinking 'that's a pretty place down there,'" Anders said. "It hadn't quite sunk in like the Earthrise picture did, because the Earthrise had the Earth contrasted with this ugly lunar surface."

Anders described the view of Earth before Earthrise "kind of like the classroom globe sitting on a teacher's desk, but no country divisions. It was about 25,000 miles away where you could still recognize continents."

"I don't know who said it, maybe all of us said, ‘Look at that!'" Anders said. "And up came the Earth. We had had no discussion on the ground, no briefing, no instructions on what to do. I jokingly said, 'well it's not on the flight plan,' and the other two guys were yelling at me to give them cameras. I had the only color camera with a long lens. So I floated a black and white over to Borman. I can't remember what Lovell got. There were all yelling for cameras, and we started snapping away."

"Earthrise" is the name given to a photograph of the Earth taken by Anders during lunar orbit on Dec. 24, 1968. Earthrise became one of the most famous photographs from all of the Apollo missions and one of the most reproduced space photographs of all time. It has been credited for inspiring the beginning of the environmental movement. In Life Magazine's 100 Photographs that Changed the World edition, wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called Earthrise, "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken." Another boost of fame came in 1969 when the U. S. Postal Service issued a stamp commemorating the Apollo 8 mission.