run, run, run – caught by electronic flash over 80 years ago
Toronto. By 1940, newspapers and newshounds alike were busy trying to find new cheery ideas as WW2 rumbled on with its sorrowful gloom and destruction.
Electronic flash suggested not only enough light for the slow film media of the day, but a way to have “shutter” speeds far faster than the physical shutter could possibly do. A new way to show how bright things were in spite of the war.
An example is this clever electronic flash news photo from the May 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics. The trio of track runners are frozen in time with every grimace and step captured forever! This amazing shot was taken at 30x the physical speed of the shutter – (even faster than that if it was a focal plane shutter)!
A big nod to good friend and fellow PHSC member, George Dunbar, for sending me this historic article in Popular Mechanics – ‘permanently’ captured via digital technology of today.
Note: this post name was inspired by the old Georgia Gibbs song of the same name from back when I was a teen-ager.
