| Names: | Born: Harold Eugene Edgerton
Other: Doc Edgerton
Other: Harold Edgerton
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| | Dates: | 1903, 6 April - 1990, 4 January | | Born: | US, NE, Fremont | | Died: | US, MA, Cambridge | | Active: | US | | Gender: | Male | | Website: | edgerton-digital-collections.org |
American scientific photographer and pioneer of stroboscopic photography.Preparing biographies
Harold Edgerton was an electrical engineer and began to take photographs as scientific experiments. In his first, he tried to produce a perfect coronet from a single drop of milk falling into liquid. To do this he invented the stroboscope - a device to produce short bursts of light. This allowed him to take split-second pictures of objects in motion which could not be seen by the human eye, including bullets and hummingbirds in flight, light bulbs shattering, and athletes in action. Some of his photographs had an exposure time of less than 1/10,000 of a second.
This biography is courtesy and copyright of the Victoria & Albert Museum and is included here with permission.
Date last updated: 11 Nov 2011.
SHARED BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION PROJECT
We welcome institutions and scholars willing to test the sharing of biographies for the benefit of the photo-history community. The biography above is a part of this trial.
If you find any errors please email us details so they can be corrected as soon as possible. |
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Biography provided by Focal Press
A scientist who, in 1938, developed the electronic flash tube that emitted a brilliant light lasting less than one-millionth of a second and was capable of being fired rapidly to obtain multiple-image stroboscopic effects. Electronic flash photography is based upon his discoveries. Using the stroboscope, he explored the field of high-speed photography, becoming the first to make stop-action photographs of events unperceivable to the human eye. The formal compositions of ordinary subjects, such as a bullet exploding an apple, aroused wonder and crossed the borders of art, entertainment, and science, making the invisible visible and thereby expanding our notion of reality.
(Author: Robert Hirsch - Independent scholar and writer)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Bruce, Roger (ed.), 1994, Seeing the Unseen: Dr. Harold Edgerton and the Wonders of Strobe Alley, (Rochester, NY: George Eastman House) [LL_REF:749]
Jussim, E., 1987, Stopping Time, The Photographs of Harold Edgerton, (New York: Abrams) [LL_REF:1341]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
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Family history
If you are related to this photographer and interested in tracking down your extended family we can place a note here for you to help. It is free and you would be amazed who gets in touch.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
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Exhibitions on this website |
 | Harold E. Edgerton: Baton |
|  | Harold E. Edgerton: Bullets |
|  | Harold E. Edgerton: Milk drop |
|  | Harold E. Edgerton: Night experiments at Stonehenge |
|  | Harold E. Edgerton: Schlieren photographs |
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All photographs by this photographer
The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
• Auer, Michele & Michel 1985 Encyclopedie Internationale Des Photographes de 1839 a Nos Jours / Photographers Encylopaedia International 1839 to the present (Hermance, Editions Camera Obscura) 2 volumes [A classic reference work for biographical information on photographers.]
• Beaton, Cecil & Buckland, Gail 1975 The Magic Eye: The Genius of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company) p.193 [Useful short biographies with personal asides and one or more example images.]
• Capa, Cornell (ed.) 1984 The International Center of Photography: Encyclopedia of Photography (New York, Crown Publishers, Inc. - A Pound Press Book) p.162-163
• Evans, Martin Marix (Executive ed.) 1995 Contemporary Photographers [Third Edition] (St. James Press - An International Thomson Publishing Company) [Expensive reference work but highly informative.]
• International Center of Photography 1999 Reflections in a Glass Eye: Works from the International Center of Photography Collection (New York: A Bulfinch Press Book) p.214 [Includes a well written short biography on Harold E. Edgerton with example plate(s) earlier in book.]
• Lenman, Robin (ed.) 2005 The Oxford Companion to the Photograph (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [Includes a short biography on Harold E. Edgerton.]
• Witkin, Lee D. and Barbara London 1979 The Photograph Collector’s Guide (London: Secker and Warburg) p.129 [Long out of print but an essential reference work - the good news is that a new edition is in preparation.]
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If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
Photographic collections are a useful means of examining large numbers of photographs by a single photographer on-line.
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