when starch was used to clean the moon...

images from a small premium booklet that came free with faultless starch circa 1895. this tiny book, very much a pre-curser to cereal and food premiums, was part of a series of tiny kids story giveaways involving the starch as a main "ingredient" of the narrative. in this case, a boy is awakened by some pixies who invite him to visit the moon. there he discovers that the dark spots on the moon are dirty from coal, and that there are small moon pixies who clean the dirt away with faultless starch, which is why the moon shines so brightly. the boy ends up back in his bed (was it all a dream?) with a fresh box of starch by his side... can't find any info on the illustrator of these tiny newsprint booklets, the drawings are pretty darn nice...

moon dust...

these images were taken by the russian spacecraft lunik III in october of 1959 and reproduced in flying saucers magazine in 1962.

i have to say i have a lot of love for images that are full of artifacts of a less than perfect translation process... it gives them atmosphere, and a sense of abstraction that feels like some kind of inner voice is also being captured by the process. the photos we see here have an even grittier presence due to the fact that they were reproduced very poorly in a cheap magazine, and printed on newsprint. in this case, something might be lost in terms of scientific details (and indeed the article questions if there is any value in such "poor quality" photos), but much beauty is certainly gained in the process... their ethereal presence is like a hybrid of of 19th century spirit photos and a fax machine.

speaking of process... according to ray palmer, who wrote the article, "the vagueness of the photos is due to the fact that development had to take place in space using a very unique method of chemical development because of the weightless factor and the heat that existed inside the capsule that would have ruined ordinary negatives, and transmission had to be by radio wave, subject to enormous interference from static and conflicting signals".