William A. Anders, the Apollo 8 astronaut who captured the iconic “Earthrise” photograph in December 1968, has died at the age of 90.

The small, vintage plane he was piloting alone—a Beechcraft T-34 Mentor—crashed into the water near Roche Harbor, Washington, on June 7, local officials confirmed.

“The family is devastated,” his son, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Greg Anders, tells the Associated Press’ Gene Johnson and Audrey McAvoy. “He was a great pilot, and we will miss him terribly.”

“He traveled to the threshold of the moon and helped all of us see something else: ourselves,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson wrote on X. “He embodied the lessons and the purpose of exploration.”

Born in 1933 in Hong Kong, Anders graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1955 and was subsequently commissioned to the U.S. Air Force, where he earned his pilot’s wings the following year, CNN’s Joe Sutton and Ashley R. Williams report. In the skies over California and Iceland, he served as an all-weather fighter pilot, and he later managed nuclear reactor shielding and radiation effects programs at New Mexico’s Air Force Weapons Laboratory.

In 1963, Anders was chosen to be a member of NASA’s third group of astronauts. With Neil Armstrong, he was part of the Gemini 11 backup crew in 1966. Two years later, Anders served as the lunar module pilot for the Apollo 8 mission, alongside command module pilot Jim Lovell and mission commander Frank Borman. The trio launched to space on the first crewed flight of the Saturn V rocket.

“The Apollo 8 crew took on [one] of the hardest, highest-risk missions one can imagine,” Dan Dumbacher, CEO of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, tells Smithsonian magazine in an email.

“Because of the pressures of the space race, the mission objective of orbiting the moon was set just four months before [Apollo 8] was scheduled to launch,” Teasel Muir-Harmony, curator of the Apollo collection at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, writes in an email to Smithsonian magazine. “This timeline required intense training and focus from the crew. As the first mission of its kind, it also required tremendous bravery.”

After the Apollo 8 mission launched on December 21, 1968, Anders and his crewmates set records for traveling faster and farther than any human had ever gone before. They orbited the moon ten times, becoming the first people to observe the dark side of the moon and the first to see Earth from beyond the lunar horizon.

“The most impressive aspect of the flight was [when] we were in lunar orbit,” Anders said in a 1997 NASA oral history. “We’d been going backwards and upside-down, didn’t really see the Earth or the sun, and when we rolled around and came around and saw the first Earthrise, that certainly was, by far, the most impressive thing, to see this very delicate, colorful orb—which to me looked like a Christmas tree ornament—coming up over this very stark, ugly lunar landscape.”

On Christmas Eve 1968, the astronauts took pictures of this stunning view of Earth. Anders, the only one using color film, captured the now-famous image called “Earthrise.”

The photograph was made into a postage stamp in 1969 and galvanized the environmental protection movement, appearing on posters during the first Earth Day in 1970, the New York Times’ Richard Goldstein reports.

In a 2015 interview with Forbes’ Jim Clash, Anders said: “The view points out the beauty of Earth and its fragility. It helped kick start the environmental movement. … Here we came all the way to the moon to discover Earth.”

Together, the Apollo 8 crew members—Anders, Lovell and Borman—were named the Time magazine “Men of the Year” for 1968. Later, Anders served on the backup crew for the Apollo 11 mission.

Following Apollo 8—his one and only journey into space, which lasted a total of six days, three hours and 42 seconds—Anders served as the executive secretary for the National Aeronautics and Space Council from 1969 to 1973. He also held high-ranking positions within the Atomic Energy Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and for a little over a year, from 1976 to 1977, he was the U.S. ambassador to Norway.

Today, the Earthrise photograph and the camera Anders used to capture it are on display in the “One World Connected” gallery at the National Air and Space Museum.

“Earthrise and the camera remind us of the recentness of our perspective of Earth from space, and, more importantly, of humanity’s place in the universe,” says Muir-Harmony.

When I was traveling around New Zealand last year, I was treated to a daily visual feast. Everywhere I looked, I felt like I was in a scene from Lord of the Rings. Capturing images and videos on my smartphone camera didn’t do it justice. I was wishing I invested in a good DSLR camera, although taking photos and videos on my mobile device was pretty convenient already. But a higher quality camera would probably have captured these panoramic views better than my “measly” phone camera.

Designers: Álvaro Arregui Falcón, Mireia Gordi i Vila, Lucas Seidenfaden

Having something like the Keirin concept camera would also have captured the scenery beter since its focus is panorama photography. The name itself actually comes from the Japanese motor-paced cycle racing which happens in an oval track. The prototype shows that it has a curved OLED touchscreen where all the controls are located and actually wraps around the back panel. The touchscreen idea for the controls should make it easier to learn how to use than the usual manual controls on cameras. It is also pretty compact and almost the same size as a mobile phone.

The prototype tries to show that the design can actually work with the UI that they’re looking to create for the camera. It has a wide rear-mounted screen that you can use as a panoramic viewfinder and swiping through it will bring you the different manual exposure controls. It assumes of course that those who want to use this kind of camera are not the point and shoot kind of photographers but those that want to control things like aspect ratios and exposure in order to better capture panoramic photos.

The plan is for the Keirin to have a 60MP full-frame sensor with a 35mm lens and it needs to have SSD storage and mobile connectivity so your images can be backed up to the cloud automatically. It can also attach other peripherals like a panoramic optical viewfinder and a wireless flash unit. It’s highly unlikely this camera will be a commercially viable product though but it’s a nice idea to have.

The Sony World Photography Awards 2025 is currently open for professional photographers from all over the world. Apply Below: 

 When is the Application Deadline:

The application deadline for the Sony World Photography Awards 2025  for Students & Professional Photographers is January 10 2025 at 13.00 GMT. 

Tell Me About The Sony World Photography Awards 2025

The 2025 Sony World Photography Awards applications are now open. It is the leading competition for photographers and artists in the field of photography. The awards consist of four competitions: Professional, Open, Student, and Youth. Entry to all competitions is free, and the top prize is $25,000. Since its inception 16 years ago, the Awards have been regarded as one of the most prestigious photography competitions in the world, and have helped elevate the careers of photographers, from established to emerging talents.

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Which Fields are Eligible?

Photographers 

Type:

Award

Who can Apply?

The competition has various categories:

Professional Competition

• Free to enter
• Open to anyone submitting a series of 5 to 10 images per category
• Ten diverse categories to enter 
• Awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photographers plus up to 7 shortlisted photographers per category
• One overall winner receives the Photographer of the Year title 
• Please see ‘Rules’ below for full image eligibility criteria
• Photographer of the Year is rewarded with a solo presentation of their work as part of the Sony World Photography Awards London exhibition the following year
• The deadline is January 10, 2025.

Professional Competition

• Free to enter
• Open to anyone submitting a series of 5 to 10 images per category
• Ten diverse categories to enter 
• Awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photographers plus up to 7 shortlisted photographers per category
• One overall winner receives the Photographer of the Year title 
• Please see ‘Rules’ below for full image eligibility criteria
• Photographer of the Year is rewarded with a solo presentation of their work as part of the Sony World Photography Awards London exhibition the following year
• The deadline is January 10 2025 at 13.00 GMT

Check: Apply For The Harvard University Society Of Fellows Program ($97,000 Annual Stipend)

Open Competition

• Free to enter and open to anyone submitting single images taken in 2024
• Enter up to three single images for free
• Ten diverse categories to enter 
• Awards for category winners plus up to 15 shortlisted photographers per category
• One overall winner receives the Open Photographer of the Year title
• Please see ‘Rules’ below for full image eligibility criteria

Youth Competition

• The competition runs from 1 June 2024 to 3 January 2025
• Photographers can enter up to three images relating to the theme ‘Through Your Eyes’Judges will select a shortlist of up to 10 photographers
• Shortlist compete for Youth Photographer of the Year title
• The overall winner receives the Youth Photographer of the Year title and a Sony digital imaging kit
• Please see ‘Rules’ below for full image eligibility criteria
• The deadline for entries is 3 January 2025 at 13:00 (GMT)

Student Competition

• Free to enter for anyone aged from 18 to 30 years old undertaking a full-time photography program.
• Students answer a set brief with 5 to 10 images
• Up to 10 shortlisted photographers
• One overall winner receives the Student Photographer of the Year title
• Deadline for entries is 29 November 2024 at 13:00 (GMT)

Competition Timeline

• Sony World Photography Awards 2025 open 1 June 2024, 13:00 (BST)
• Student competition closes on 29 November 2024, 13:00 (GMT)
• The youth competition closes on 3 January 2025, 13:00 (GMT)
• Open competition (including National & Regional Awards and Alpha Female Award) closes on 3 January 2025, 13:00 (GMT)
• Professional competition (including the Latin America Professional Award and Sustainability Prize) closes on 10 January 2025, 13:00 (GMT)

Which Countries Are Eligible?

All countries 

Where will the Award be Taken?

Somerset House, London

How Many Awards?

Not specified

Read also: Tiger Brands Learnership Programme 2024 For South Africans

What is the Benefit of the Award?

Winners will be awarded with various cash prizes and equipment. 

How to Apply:

To learn more about the application process, visit the official website below,.

Visit the Award Webpage for Details

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Great pictures can make or break a campaign — or at least the mail creative. But there are so many variables that factor into getting the right shot.

With that in mind, C&E asked Illinois-based candidate photographer Doug McGoldrick for his best advice for before, during and after shoot day:

C&E: What’s your best advice for having a shoot day go well? 
McGoldrick: Have your locations set up [in advance]. That’s something I’ve seen go wrong on shoots. Someone says, ‘Oh, I think I know the guy at this coffee shop, they’ll probably let us shoot there,’ and then they don’t. That wastes a lot of time on the campaign, which is, you know, valuable.

C&E: Is there a candidate fashion trend that you’ve noticed?
McGoldrick: A few years ago, you definitely would’ve had [the candidate] with a tie and the whole sport coat or [a female candidate with] a nice blouse. Very formal looking kind of stuff. Now, hardly anybody is putting on a tie these days. I think people want to look like they’re one of the people. Even the official portrait with the flag, the whole studio lighting set up, that’s really become a thing [for post-election]. You don’t really see that used much in campaign literature now.

C&E: What’s another creative trend you are noticing in campaign photography?
McGoldrick: Women’s rights issues — even if it’s a male candidate, [we’re] really surrounding them with women to show … that they’re supporting women’s rights and that kind of thing.

C&E: Are you finding AI tools are helpful for editing?
McGoldrick: I use [AI] mainly for removing distractions from images. [Adobe] Photoshop has an AI tool now where I could circle a stop sign that’s in the back of a photo and just click generate fill and it’ll remove it. And it looks generally really nice. Every once a while you get like a surprise, like it’ll put a face there or something, but for the most part, it’s a lot quicker than going in with like a cloning tool or a healing brush and trying to get it [cleaned] up by myself.

C&E: How important is it that campaigns build up an image library of the candidate?
McGoldrick: It’s super valuable for candidates. They can have stuff that they can draw on, like a picture [of the candidate at a] kitchen table with, like, a senior couple. I think the biggest thing with any kind of photo shoot day with candidates is really getting their volunteers lined up. I’ve been on a lot of photo shoots where we get to the cafe, or the small business and the volunteers aren’t there, and then we’re scrambling to figure out what to do. So having volunteers lined up, I would say, is almost the most important thing of the whole day.