| Photo: Jared Sanders |
Photographing rocket launches presents distinct challenges; you get one shot at a seconds-long window, the environment is extreme and the flexibility for creativity is limited. Photographer Jared Sanders has made this his specialty, and for Artemis II, the first crewed Moon mission since Apollo 17 in 1972, the pressure was unlike anything he had experienced before.
Despite that pressure, Sanders came home with some striking images and videos of the launch, including an unplanned moment of a newly engaged couple celebrating in front of his lens. To learn about what it takes to create images worthy of the moment, we sat down with Sanders to talk about his background, gear, logistics and more.
From visual effects to the launch pad
Sanders didn’t start his career photographing rockets or even using a camera at all. Instead, he went to school for visual effects in 2008 and went straight to California after graduating to work for VFX studios, where he was far from any camera work or filming. That changed when he started working for a rare end-to-end studio – one that pitched, produced and delivered its own projects – and became a visual effects supervisor.
For the first time, he was on set alongside directors and camera operators. “There was no pressure on me to be part of the production in that capacity, but I was still able to absorb all of that knowledge,” he said. “Instantly, I was hooked.”
“It turned out all the knowledge that I had learned over the years actually was useful”
In 2017, Sanders wanted something different and co-founded a creative marketing agency with a friend. With just two employees and clients to serve, there was no budget to hire a photographer, so Sanders handled the visuals himself. “It turned out all the knowledge that I had learned over the years actually was useful,” he told me. “The skill set that I had from working in the studio of how to light things and properly pitch, how to write and direct a project, all that started coming together.”
During the pandemic, a second child, a parting of ways with his business partner and a desire to get out of Los Angeles sent him back to the Florida Space Coast, where he had grown up. Starting from scratch, he looked around for what he could capture consistently without traveling far. “I grew up here, I knew about rocket launches, and during this whole time, it had started ramping up with SpaceX, especially,” he said. “I was like, I really want to start shooting rocket launches.”
Getting access, getting it wrong
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Getting to the press site involves some logistics, including buses and a security check of gear. Photo: Jared Sanders |
With that goal in mind, Sanders reached out to local photographers to ask about getting access to NASA and how they take their shots. Those photographers pointed him toward Space Explored, a space-focused publication in the 9to5Mac network that was looking for photographers and videographers. He pitched himself, got the green light, and went through NASA’s formal media credentialing process.
Access is one thing, but the harder part is getting the shots. His earliest attempts were off-site long-exposure shots from the beach, trying to capture the rocket’s arc across a four-minute exposure. Keeping the camera perfectly still for that long, firing at the right moment and waiting while the screen blacks out during exposure and processing made for a steep introduction. “The rocket’s gone, and you’re like, did I get it?” he said. Frequently, the answer was no.
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Photographing launches at night is especially difficult due to the extreme contrast, as shown in this image of the Artemis I launch. Photo: Jared Sanders |
Sanders told me that rocket photography has a few big challenges: the short duration of the event and the intensity of the plume. “Even as an experienced photographer, the thing that is really tricky with rockets that I have I’ve never experienced with anything else… is the speed because you only get one shot at it per attempt,” he said. “You get this 30-second arc, and then it’s sort of out of sight.“
“It’s so bright. At nighttime, especially, you’re literally exposing for night and the sun at the same time.”
The engine plume also complicates things. “It’s so bright. At nighttime, especially, you’re literally exposing for night and the sun at the same time. So you have to pick and choose your battle,” he explained. “Obviously, camera technology has gotten a lot better. So you can sort of fix some of that with modern technology. But at the same time, you’re going to lose something in that battle. You’re going to lose either your highlights or you’re going to lose your shadows. It’s just what are you gonna pick?”
For photographers shooting from public sites rather than the press site, location is most of the creative work. From the press lawn, though, everyone is pointing in roughly the same direction across the same arc, three and a half miles from the pad. “It’s so hard to make your stuff look different from any other photographer out there,” he said. “You either get lucky and pick a spot no one else has, or you figure out a way to treat your footage and photos so they look just a little bit different.”
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Sanders also photographed the astronauts walking out to the rocket, using his Super 8 camera. Photos: Jared Sanders |
Most photographers at the press sites are there capturing typical news shots, which means very minimal color correction and editing. It’s what press wires need, but he had the flexibility to try something else. “I edit my rocket photos the way I would edit my normal photography,” he said. “The coloring just looks a little bit different. It may lean a little more toward the normal color palette I’d use for my landscape photos or whatever other photos I’d be taking in that series.”
Sanders has also brought film to launches to create something different. For Artemis II, he said he was the only person at the press site recording video with Super 8 film. He put a roll of Kodak 500T through the camera, which he recently sent off and is waiting to see if it worked out. “Those are the kind of things that I try to do differently, to set myself a little bit apart from the other photographers.”
Remote cameras and technical details
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Sanders didn’t have remote cameras for Artemis II, but he did have remote setups for the first Artemis launch. Photos: Jared Sanders |
Remote cameras come with their own logistical challenges. NASA buses credentialed photographers out to preset zones about a half mile from the pad, where cameras are left unattended until after the launch. Sanders explained that focus is locked manually, and most photographers use sound-activated triggers (Sanders and many others use Miops), which fire the camera the moment the rocket’s acoustics reach them.
For a mission like Artemis, installing remote cameras means journeying to the Cape multiple days before launch. “You have to go through a whole security check with your camera gear,” he told me. “Then you get on the bus. So it’s like a whole day event to get out there and set the cameras up.” If the mission gets scrubbed, you’ll have to go back out to pick up your gear and set it up all over again at a different date.
“You’re still within a half mile of the rocket. I’ve seen a lot of pitted lenses from like fuel or just debris.”
Protecting the camera is also critical. Sanders said you have to bag the camera or have it in a box so that it doesn’t get rained on, and he also uses hand warmers to keep the intense Florida humidity out. There’s also a physical risk to the gear from the launch itself. “You’re definitely putting your gear at risk,” Sanders said. “You’re still within a half mile of the rocket. I’ve seen a lot of pitted lenses from like fuel or just debris.”
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Sanders knew he would lose highlight detail on the plume, but was more concerned with balancing the exposure of the clouds and rocket. Photo: Jared Sanders |
In terms of camera settings, Sanders explained that some photographers use aperture priority and let the camera adapt to rapidly changing light. He, however, shoots full manual, preferring greater control and a more consistent sequence of exposures that he can cut together almost like a time-lapse. Choosing the exact settings comes down to the priorities of each shot. For the remote cameras, “that’s where you’re like, ‘Okay, I really want to see detail in the engines and the flames,'” Sanders explained.
The shots from the press sites, which are farther from the launch, serve different purposes. “When you’re far away, to me it’s more about the story you’re telling with the scenery and where you are,” he said. That might mean letting the brightest parts of the engines and plume lose detail. “Even from my still shots, I think that the exhaust and the engines were a little bit blown out… The clouds were really nice that day, and I wanted to make sure you could see the clouds and the rocket contrast against the sky.”
The setup for Artemis II
Sanders went into the Artemis II launch with a specific plan and an extensive kit in tow to execute. He arrived at the press site with six cameras: a Red Komodo X for a landscape-oriented video, a Nikon ZR for a portrait-oriented video, a Fujifilm GFX 100 II with a 500mm lens for stills, a 360° camera and Insta360 Ace Pro 2 for behind-the-scenes footage and the Super 8 setup on a tripod (which differed slightly from his plan laid out in the video above).
Sanders also packed two lenses for his video cameras: a 1995 parfocal broadcast lens and a Tamron 35-150mm F2-2.8 Di III VXD. He put the Tamron on his Komodo and planned to use the broadcast lens on the ZR. However, when he arrived on site, he discovered that Nikon had a tent with gear available for anyone to borrow for the launch.
He walked over just to check it out, without any intention of borrowing anything, since he already had so much gear with him. But the Nikon representative mentioned he had the 600mm F4 with him. “It’s like a $16,000 lens, and I was like, well, I gotta use it because I’m not gonna buy this lens ever, and I’m not going to rent it. So, I’m going to use it,” he said.
When the unplanned makes the shot
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That 600mm ended up being the key to getting a clip that stood out from the rest, which you can see above (it was also what got my attention and sparked this interview). He knew he had a wide view covered with the Komodo, so he wanted something different from the ZR with the 600mm lens. “I have this prime lens. It’s going to have tons of compression. I can at least get some people in the foreground,” he explained. “It would be cool to see some scale of the rocket. And that was my main intention.” So he set up the camera at a distance from one of the angles that people usually shoot from and chose a low-angle shot looking up.
The rest of the shot was pure serendipity. “I pointed it up, and these people walked in front, and I had no idea anybody was going to be there just yet. But when these people walk in front, they start hugging, and the rocket’s right in between them,” Sanders recounted. “I’m like, ‘Oh, oh my gosh.’ If they’re there hugging when this thing goes off, that’s going to be pretty cool.”
Sanders has shot enough previous launches to know that people always react to the wall of sound, and said that the first Artemis launch was especially crazy. So he had high hopes for a cool reaction if they stayed in front of his camera, but it was still a wait-and-see situation. “The press site’s really big, so I’m probably like a football field away from the camera where I’m actually shooting,” he told me. “I run over at like six minutes to go, and I hit record, hoping I have a full battery. And I was recording at 6K Raw, so I was like ‘oh my gosh, I hope it doesn’t run out of memory.'”
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Three behind-the-scenes images from the launch. You can see a behind-the-scenes video here. Photos: Jared Sanders |
He went back to his main spot and captured the launch with the other cameras, taking only a brief moment to look through the viewfinder to revel in the view without taking photos. When he went back to the ZR and reviewed the footage, he saw that the couple who had been hugging before the launch were jumping and cheering during the launch right in front of his camera.
“It ended up being a story within a story.”
While everyone else rushed to get their clips and photos up as soon as possible, Sanders opted to go home, spend time with his family and then color grade, finally getting the video up around midnight. He assumed he missed the magical window, but the video blew up on Instagram. At some point, the woman in the video was tagged. She reached out and told him that she and her fiancé are both in the space program, and that they had just gotten engaged at the Artemis II rollout. She even asked if she could use the footage in their wedding video (to which he said yes). “It ended up being a story within a story,” he said.
There’s also more of that clip that he hasn’t released yet: after the rocket clears the frame, the two of them standing still, hands together, staring up at the dissipating plume. “They’re like two kids seeing Disney for the first time,” he said. He plans to put a reel together around it eventually. For now, it’s sitting on a hard drive; it’s the kind of footage, he said, that makes you want to back it up in fifteen places.
You can see more of Sanders’s work at his website, on his YouTube channel or on his Instagram account.