Harold Edgerton: High Speed Image

Harold Eugene Edgerton who is also known as 'Papa Flash'. He was an electrical engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He is hugely credited for the transformation of the stroboscope from an unknown laboratory instrument, into a common device. Edgerton was also involved in the development of deep-sea photography and sonar.

Edgerton was born in Nebraska on April 6 1903. Edgerton also grew up in Nebraska and later spent some of his childhood in Washington D.C.

Edgerton credited Charles Stark Draper for inspiring him to photographing everyday objects with the use of an electronic flash.

In 1937, Edgerton started what was a lifelong association with a photographer named Gjon Milii. He used numerous studio electronic flash units, to create stunningly striking photographs. When taking multi flash photographs, the strobe lighting was able to flash up to 120 times a second. Edgerton was the pioneer in the use of short duration electronic flash photographic very fast scenarios. Examples of this include, photographing a bullet during an impact with an apple or different stages of a balloon bursting.

In a group we had to drop a plum into water in completed darkness. We took a photo as a 4 second exposure so as soon as the plum hit the sensor it set the lights off in which the camera would capture the plum making a crown shaped splash in the water. Some photos were successful as we capture the splash perfectly but some did not turn out so great because the delay on the sensor was either to high or low so we caught the plum falling or actually submerged in the water. The images can be seen below.