NEW YORK, NY.- In 1961, at the age of eight, John A. Chakeres witnessed an event on television in his third-grade classroom that would have a major impact on his life. Broadcast from Cape Canaveral, Florida, he watched Navy Commander Alan Bartlett Shepard, Jr. launch into space aboard the Freedom 7 space capsule, becoming the first American astronaut to make a sub-orbital flight. The excitement of that day never left him, and triggered his interest in photography. He would set his father's Rolleiflex camera in front of the television set and photograph the space launches.
In the 1970s Chakeres embarked on a career as a professional photographer and published several books. When NASA's Space Shuttle Program started in 1981 with the launch of the first Space Shuttle Columbia, he saw a golden opportunity to combine his love of photography with his passion for space. He contacted NASA to propose a long-term photographic project to document the Space Shuttle program.
To his delight, NASA granted Chakeres permission to photograph the Shuttle operations at the Kennedy Space Center, and he began his five-year project capturing the sensational launch and landing operations of the four original space shuttles: Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. He did not know at the time that the thrilling photographs he made during that period would be published in a book over 30 years later.
Chakeres wanted to create images that were both majestic, symbolic, and gave the viewer a sense of what was required to fly such a complex piece of machinery and technology. The idea was to do more of a portrait of the Space Shuttle. He was intrigued by how its design created a unique looking vehicle, and its final form was determined by its function. Using the original Apple Macintosh computer, he designed remote camera triggering devices to start the motor driven cameras at the moment of launch. He also designed housings to protect the cameras from the harsh Florida environment.
Unfortunately, Chakeres's dream project ended prematurely with the Challenger accident in 1986. It was too painful for him to continue the work after witnessing this tragedy, and he set the project aside. For more than twenty-five years he kept his negatives in storage. Shuttle flights resumed in 1988 and the last mission launched in 2011. With the program now part of history, he was encouraged by friends and colleagues to revisit the project. So, in the summer of 2013 he decided to bring the negatives out of storage and begin scanning them and making prints.
As he rediscovered the photographs, Chakeres began to think about what compelled him to make them. He writes: "I think what captured my imagination the most about the early days of manned spaceflight was the fact that every mission did something that had never been done before: the first American in space, the first American to orbit the earth, the first American to walk in space, the first man on the moon. The Space Shuttle was the first reusable manned spacecraft, the first to launch and retrieve satellites while in space, the first to launch an American woman into space. And, between 1981 and 1986 NASA had four operational Space Shuttles, Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, and Atlantis. Those four vehicles comprised the First Fleet which is the title of my book."
In his Prologue about Chakeres' passion for space travel and work as a photographer, collector and curator W.M.Hunt writes: "Chakeres' awe of these gigantic, streamlined craft with their sharp modernity is evident. His affection and admiration-obsession-are visceral. ... going back to these "First Fleet" photographs from the 1980s has been an act of redemption for the photographer. This work was something rare and special, even exalted. It certainly rewards the fresh look offered in this book."
The book includes a Foreword by Astronaut and S.T.E.A.M. Explorer Leland Melvin and an essay by John A. Chakeres.
Melvin writes: "'First Fleet' captures the glory of the early flights of the Space Shuttle program. ...This compilation of images inspired me to believe again in the power of people coming together to create things bigger than themselves to help advance our civilization. It inspired me to continue exploring, to leap over barriers and discover our next great mission."
John A. Chakeres has been an artist working in photography for more than 40 years. He has published three books of his photographs, Traces: An Investigation in Reason, 1977; D'art Objects: A Collaboration, 1978; and Random New York: An Unscripted Walk, 2008. His photographs have been included in numerous exhibitions and publications, and are in a number of permanent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Ill, Southeast Museum of Photography, Daytona Beach, FL, Monterey Museum of Art, Monterey, CA and Tweed Museum of Art, Duluth, MN. He has taught photography, printmaking, and digital imaging at Ohio University, Columbus College of Art and Design, and Columbus State Community College.
Leland Melvin is an engineer and NASA astronaut and former wide receiver for the Detroit Lions. He served on the space shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist and was named the NASA Associate Administrator for Education in October 2010. He also served as the co-chair on the White House's Federal Coordination in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Task Force, developing the nation's five-year STEM education plan. He holds four honorary doctorates and has received the NFL Player Association Award of Excellence. He shares his inspirational life story in his memoir Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances (Amistad (May 23, 2017). Leland Melvin lives in Lynchburg, Virginia.
W.M. Hunt is a photography collector, curator and consultant who lives and works in New York City. His book The Unseen Eye (Aperture, Thames & Hudson, Actes Sud) focuses on Collection Dancing Bear, his largest collection of photographs. W.M. Hunt has written essays on or for artists, among them Bill Armstrong, Wilson A. Bentley, Mark Beard, Luc Delahaye, Larry Gianettino, Manuel Geerinck, Bohnchang Koo, Luis Mallo, Jeff Sheng, Phillip Toledano and Frank Yamrus. He is a frequent lecturer on the art of collecting and an adjunct professor at the School of Visual Arts, New York.
