The exhibit takes a unique look at the Manhattan Project — a look behind the camera. Created in partnership with the Laboratory’s National Security Research Center (NSRC), the exhibit showcases the work, tools and stories of Project Y shutterbugs like Mike Michnovicz, Ernest Wallis and George Thompson. These photographers’ images played an important role in documenting the secret project’s progress, capturing details of one of the most significant moments in recent history.
Just the facts
“The men assigned to work as photographers were tasked with capturing both the technical and non-technical aspects of the Manhattan Project,” explains NSRC historian and museum specialist Madeline Whitacre. These photographers didn’t take snapshots for art’s sake; these were workers with a job to do, and their images were meant to create a visual record for science and posterity. They were ordinary joes photographing extraordinary events. Says Whitacre, “Their work gives important insight into the Manhattan Project era that can’t be fully captured in textual documentation alone.” The photography featured in the exhibit captures the matter-of-fact intent of their assignments.
Work and life in Los Alamos
Many Project Y photographers were uniformed officers, while a few were from Manhattan Project’s science community, including future Los Alamos National Laboratory director Harold Agnew. The project’s organizers were savvy about photography, and how it was a necessary tool to record their experiments. “Cameras and photography equipment make up a significant portion of the Bradbury’s Manhattan Project collection,” points out Wendy Strohmeyer, the collections manager for the museum and the Manhattan Project National Historical Park. Researchers used the photographers’ images to study the results of the relentless efforts to produce an atomic bomb. Says Strohmeyer, “Alongside the race to build the bomb, a fascinating parallel story is how the scientists imagined recording visual data, even inventing methods for high-speed capture where they could.”
But it wasn’t a case of “all work and no play.” Some photographers also captured moments of celebration and daily living in the clandestine outpost, giving a sense of what life was like in their makeshift community. The exhibit provides a sense of the breadth of their photos. “The images range from preparations for the Trinity test to post-detonation damages to social events,” says Whitacre.
See “Project Y Photographers” in the Bradbury Science Museum’s Tech Lab this summer, beginning June 1.