MIT Museum

Major collection: Science & Technology
Named collection: Harold E. Edgerton Collection
Object type: negative
Maker: Edgerton, Harold Eugene
Date made: 1940

Taken near Catalina Island, California in 1940, with the help of associate Frank Wyle, this composite photograph was extremely difficult to produce. Weather conditions had to be perfectly calm and the fish were elusive. To take off, a flying fish achieves speed with rapid movements of his tail fin. The fish glides but does not actually fly. To show the stages of flight on one image, two negatives were combined by Edgerton for this image. (From "Stopping Time" (1987), p. 64. (CC)

HEE-NC-40012