Harold Edgerton American, 1903-1990

Works
  • Harold Edgerton, Football Placement Kick, 1934.
    Football Placement Kick, 1934.
  • Harold Edgerton, Golf drive by Densmore Shute, 1938.
    Golf drive by Densmore Shute, 1938.
  • Harold Edgerton, Swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke, 1939.
    Swirls and eddies of a tennis stroke, 1939.
  • Harold Edgerton, Action at the Rodeo, 1940
    Action at the Rodeo, 1940
  • Harold Edgerton, A Girl and her Horse, 1941.
    A Girl and her Horse, 1941.
  • Harold Edgerton, Tennis Serve, 1952.
    Tennis Serve, 1952.
  • Harold Edgerton, Milk Drop Coronet, 1957.
    Milk Drop Coronet, 1957.
  • Harold Edgerton, Cutting the Playing Card Quickly, 1964.
    Cutting the Playing Card Quickly, 1964.
  • Harold Edgerton, 30 Caliber Bullet Piercing an Apple, 1964.
    30 Caliber Bullet Piercing an Apple, 1964.
  • Harold Edgerton, Pole vaulter, David Tork , 1964.
    Pole vaulter, David Tork , 1964.
  • Harold Edgerton, Shock Waves from Impact, 1965.
    Shock Waves from Impact, 1965.
  • Harold Edgerton, Vortex at a fan blade tip with Kim Vandiver, 1973.
    Vortex at a fan blade tip with Kim Vandiver, 1973.
Exhibitions
Biography
Harold "Doc" Edgerton, born on April 6, 1903, and died on January 4, 1990, was an American scientist, electrical engineer, and inventor.
 
He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and is best known for his invention of the strobe light, which revolutionized photography, science, military surveillance, and filmmaking.
 
Edgerton's work was the subject of a retrospective at the International Center of Photography, and he was given ICP's Infinity Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1987.
 
He also performed the first-ever underwater time-lapse photography in 1968 and invented various sonar devices. Edgerton's innovative work has had a lasting impact on various fields, and he is celebrated for his philosophy of "Work hard. Tell everyone everything you know. Close a deal with a handshake. Have fun!"
 
His photographs were exhibited for the first time in 1933, at the Royal Photographic Society in London, and Beaumont Newhall included his work in the first exhibition of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in 1937.
 
The photographs that resulted from his scientific experiments were championed in the 1930s as representative of the New Objectivity, the American counterpart to the German Neue Sachlichkeit.
 
Edgerton's photography of split-second motion may be seen as an expansion beyond the nineteenth-century locomotion studies of by Eadweard Muybridge and Étienne-Jules Marey.