One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
28 October 2022
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 1 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 2 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 3 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 4 of 4
One Giant Leap for Mankind: Vintage Photographs from the Victor Martin-Malburet Collection 
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 1 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 2 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 3 of 4
, The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969 - Image 4 of 4
257

The footprint on the Moon, Buzz Aldrin [Apollo 11], July 16-24, 1969

printed 1969
vintage gelatin silver print on fiber-based paper 10 h × 8 w in (25 × 20 cm)
estimate: $6,000–8,000
result: $2,750
own a similar item?
free evaluation

After he first photographed the untouched lunar soil, Buzz Aldrin captured the image of his footprint in it. This photograph originally shot on color film has come to be regarded as iconic of space exploration.
Numbered to verso 'AS11-40-5877' with NASA HQ caption.

note: Media visuals referencing the original NASA photograph(s) not included.
literature: LIFE, 11 August 1969, back cover National Geographic, December 1969, ppg. 736-737 illustrates a variation Space: A History of Space Exploration in Photographs, Chaikin, pg. 97 Full Moon, Light, pl. 48 Apollo: The Epic Journey to the Moon, Reynolds, pg. 261 Spacecam: Photographing the Final Frontier from Apollo to Hubble, Hope, pg. 21 Moon: Man’s Greatest Adventure, Thomas, ed., pg. 178 Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts, Jacobs, pg. 63

print

“A step toward immortality.”

—Wernher Von Braun, chief architect of the Apollo Saturn project (Thomas, pg. 179)

LIFE, 11 August 1969, back cover

After he first photographed the untouched lunar soil, Buzz Aldrin captured the image of his footprint in it. The photograph has come to be regarded as iconic of space exploration.

Like the haunting footprints left in caves during the ice age, this impression of Buzz Aldrin’s boot in the fine lunar dust is expected to endure thousands of years into the future, carrying the same message: ‘We were here’. (Reynolds, pg. 260)

National Geographic, December 1969, ppg. 736-737


"Most iconic is the mark of a boot on a surface unlike any found at home. Not a rocket, dazzling in its technology and power; not some beautiful, distant nebula; but a simple sign of man’s arrival on a surface beyond the Earth. Evidence that we have walked further. A step into that magnificent desolation.”

—Buzz Aldrin (Foreword, Space the first 50 years, Mitchell Beazley, Octopus Publishing Group, London, 2007)

257