Apollo 12: Self-Portrait

Is it art? In November of 1969, Apollo 12 astronaut-photographer
Charles "Pete" Conrad recorded this masterpiece while documenting colleague
Alan Bean's lunar soil collection activities on the Oceanus Procellarum. The
image is dramatic and stark. Bean is faceless - the harsh environment of the
Moon's Ocean of Storms is echoed in his helmet's perfectly composed reflection
of Conrad and the lunar horizon. Works of photojournalists orginally intent on
recording the human condition on planet Earth, such as Lewis W. Hine and
Margaret Bourke-White are widely regarded as photographic art. Similarly
many documentary astronomy and space images can be appreciated for their
artistic and esthetic appeal.