I had sent my brother a post card of "Doc" Edgerton taken by Andy. By
coincidence, my brother picked up a book titled, "For Love of Insects" by
Thomas Eisner and apparently Edgerton is mentioned in the book. I thought
the following book review may be of interest to PF members.
Have you by any chance read this book, Andy?
Marilyn
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I've just been reading about "Doc" Edgerton. (I still have the stereo
photograph postcard you sent me on my desk.) Actually, I'm reading (just in
paperback) For Love of Insects by Thomas Eisner. In 1976 Eisner was
researching chemical discharges from bombardier beetles, and he (and his
graduate students) suspected that the
discharges were rapidly pulsed. They lacked the camera equipment to
capture the pulses. The man to see was Harold Edgerton at MIT. Edgerton,
described in glowing terms by Eisner, lets Eisner describe his beetles and
his plan to Edgerton's freshman class, then, after lunch, they do the
photography. A 16 mm Fastax was used, shooting TriX
at 2,680 frames a second. (No shutter, the flash pulses.) Each 200
foot roll gave you only 4 seconds of filming time, so you had to get it
right right away! Eisner notes that the film goes through the camera
so fast that the end of the film shreds, and the camera has to be
cleaned each time. The results were spectacular! I don't know if you
have any friends interested in insects and the life of insect science,
but this book is the best, and the photographs and style are terrific -
it's won two major awards.
