NYTimes >> Science
October 21, 2003
Through the Lens,
the Severe Beauty of Nuclear Test Blasts
These mushroom clouds, rising bug-eyed over the desert,
spreading like an alien sun over the ocean,
are the nagging headache behind what passed for reality
for a generation.
From July 1945 until November 1962, American scientists
and the military, exploring the apocalyptic
new powers they had unleashed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki
in the war, exploded 216 bombs in the
atmosphere, according to public records. Afterward, until
1992 when they were banned, the explosions
went underground.
In a new book, "100 Suns," published this week
by Knopf, the photographer Michael Light has retrieved
images of these blasts from government and scientific
archives and presented them in all their stark and
severe beauty. They document a menace that continues even
though we can no longer photograph it.
As Mr. Light reminds us, some hundred thousand nuclear
weapons have been built and remain on the earth.
That is what makes these old photographs "utterly
relevant" today.
"Photographs only tell us about the surface of
things, about how things look," Mr. Light writes. "When it's
all we have, however, it's enough to help understanding.
It exists. It happened. It is happening. May no
further nuclear detonation photographs be made,
ever."