Milliseconds after a blinding flash of light had announced the birth of the atom bomb at 5:29 a.m. on the 16th of July in 1945. One out of 52 motion picture cameras filming this historic event with varying running speed and from varying angles and distances had captured this image of a 200 meter high fiery bubble, against the backdrop of a dark sky.
While some 10,000 feet away, secure inside a forward observation shelter, an anxious Berlyn Brixner had gazed upon the phenomenal sight. Worried the ball of fire would expand beyond the frame of his optical devices and ruin crucial documentation of the world’s first atomic explosion.
Berlyn Brixner, the first photographer in the world to capture the first atomic explosion in the world.
Credited to be the first photographer to film the first atomic explosion in the world, and ushering in the genre of high-speed atomic photography with an array of innovations in the field, Brixner’s role in documenting the event was as revolutionary as the atom bomb itself – which a cohort of eminent scientists and technicians had laboured for over three years to produce with no prior experience or data to guide or help them predict the outcome.
A native of El Paso Texas and an enthusiastic amateur photographer with a penchant for documenting assigned subjects, Brixner was invited to the Manhattan Project by his childhood friend David Hawkins, who was the chief liaison officer and official historian of the nuclear program.
Brixner at the time was 34 years old and had made his way by road to the Atomic City of Los Alamos, some 96 miles away from his workplace in Duke City in New Mexico.
He was interviewed by Julian Ellis Mack, the operational head of the optical division at Los Alamos, and hired on the spot as head photographer, July 1943.
Prior to joining the Manhattan project, Brixner had worked as a photogrammetric technician and was already an experienced visual documentarian. His impressive portfolio of rare photos included images of the intense dust storms, responsibly for producing a severe drought in New Mexico, between the 1930-40s.
Berlyn Brixner’s original assignment and reason for being hired by Julian Ellis Mack.
Though Brixner is now more remembered for his role in successfully filming the test detonation at Trinity for scientists and war planners to better gauge the power of an atomic explosion. His original assignment, however, was to operate the Mack Streak Camera – a special high-speed optical medium with rotating mirror technology that Julian Ellis Mack was in the process of developing to film the lighting fast process of atomic fission.
At Los Alamos, Brixner had not only helped Julian with the development of the conceptual camera but also in improving photography techniques and developing lenses. Later in association with Julian again he was to develop a new generation of framing cameras – capable of capturing moving pictures at speeds ranging from 50,000fps to almost 3,00,000 fps.
In July 1945, as the construction of the Trinity Test Site had neared completion, Brixner along with nineteen other members of the optical division had scouted the area around ground zero in the sweltering heat, and planted 52 motion picture cameras at strategic locations so as to capture the detonation on running film from every imaginable angle and distance. Some of these cameras Brixner had also mounted on top of machine gun turrets.
The construction of the Trinity Test Site had begun in November, 1944 and taken eight moths to complete. Hundreds of military personnel and civilian workers had worked around the clock to erect the site – with equipment, water, food and practically everything else required, transported in by road from Los Alamos.
Types of cameras used by Berlyn Brixner to film the event.
To film the event, Brixner utilized almost eight different makes of optical devices – with each premanufactured to film the test detonation at varying speeds. These motion picture cameras Brixner had additionally enforced with shielding and enhanced viewfinders. He had also configured them to be operated from a single control room.
On the 16th of July in 1945, a few seconds before the Trinity Gadget was detonated, all 52 motion picture cameras had simultaneously kicked into action and captured the high speed sequence, frame by frame. Only the towering mushroom cloud at the end was captured on still cameras.
The entire event was filmed on 8mm, 16mm and 35 mm black and white film. Excluding a single work in colour which the radiation solarized and made unusable.
Footage Produced.
The 52 motion picture cameras Brixner employed, produced a footage of 1,00,000 black and white frames, and all of these were later attached to a lengthy and highly descriptive scientific report of the Test Detonation- with all manner of details and calibrations.
The filing took Julian almost a year to compile and was submitted after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The report was declassified and approved for public release in 1993 (see July 16th Nuclear Explosion, Space-Time Relationship).
Brixner had approached his assignment as a professional. The work he produced was for study and likewise stark, bare, factual and completely devoid of aesthetics or creativity.
Years later in an interview with another fellow photographer, Brixner would express his view of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ‘as the price of war’. He was sad over not being credited enough for filming the first atomic explosion.
The atomic fireball in the Black and White frame.
While the ball of fire appears to be calm and stationary in this frame that was clipped from the reel of a Mtchell motion picture camera. In reality, this concoction of super heated gas and charged particles with a cloud of boiling earth and smoke rimming its bottom, formed quickly and dissipated even more quickly.
The fire ball had formed 0.016 milliseconds after the detonation and expanding rapidly descended to the ground after 0.065 milliseconds. It had remained visible for only two seconds, before being enveloped by the dust and smoke cloud that had formed at the bottom.
Out of all images produced, this particular one had impacted Brixner the most, and had appeared in his mind, each time he had recalled the atomic explosion.
After the war Brixner, who was also an inventor and engineer, helped design a special optical lens for the telescope of the Mariner spacecrafts – send out to survey the planet Mars between 1969-70.
He is also known to have submitted some 45 papers on camera engineering and advanced optical technology.
I F I This is an independent story highlighting this Vintage frame of the atomic fireball at Trinity that formed 0.016 milliseconds after the detonation of the Trinity Gadget in 1945. The story also sheds light on the life and role of Berlyn Brixner in filming the event. Berlyn Brixner was the world’s first photographer to successfully capture on film the world’s first atomic explosion. The story has been created from facts curated from literary sources and historical documents. I
