SPACEMAN LANDS IN PONTEFRACT

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What a fantastic and successful day last Saturday when a real life NASA Astronaut landed in Pontefract!

Brigadier General Charles Moss Duke, more informally known as Charlie Duke, was the tenth man to walk on the Moon. Not only did he fly on Apollo 16 with crewmates John Young and Ken Mattingly, but he was also personally selected by Neil Armstrong to act as Capsule Communicator – CapCom – for the landing of Apollo 11.

Appearing in Pontefract due to the efforts of Ken Willoughby, who helps bring in Astronauts to inspire local school children he first gave a talk over lunch at Kings Croft Hotel and then on to Carlton High School Pontefract to give a lecture for 300 people.

In conjunction with Prophoto Event Photography we were tasked with the unique opportunity to photograph Charles with anyone who was interested in having their picture taken with him. As it turned out some 200 people took up the opportunity including yours truly!

"IT WAS QUITE AMAZING TO TO BE SHAKING HANDS WITH A MAN WHO HAD ACTUALLY WALKED ON THE MOON"

Our job for the day was to set up a studio both at Kings Croft Hotel and again later that day at Carleton High School.  At Kings we photographed just over 50 people with Charles. Using "Green Screen Technology" we photographed everyone on a green background and then allowed green screen software to work its magic by replacing the background with a fantastic moonscape complete with Lunar Lander and by special permission the logo of the Apollo 16 mission. With on site printing facilities we were then able to output completed prints and mount them just as Charlie Duke's lunch time talk was finishing so that they were ready for collection immediately after the event.

Moving on to Carleton High School we were amazed to find that we had 200 people waiting to be photographed and only 45 minutes in which to photograph everyone! Charles was fantastic, he kept smiling the whole time and was brilliant with the children a true gentleman! 

In the nick of time the photography was complete and everyone went in to the lecture theatre to listen about Charles's adventures. This left us with just 1 hour in which to print and mount all the images so that they could be collected as people left the lecture theatre. Phew! but guess what, in the nick of time the last few prints were coming off the printer as people started to emerge!  

Everyone I spoke to seemed really pleased with our work, some even said that our photography was out of this world!!!!

Thank you Charles it was a pleasure and honour working with you!