A cultural history of the sublime first image of a black hole, in
photographs and documents
"Peering into Light's Graveyard: The First Image of the Black Hole,"
read the New York Times' April 11 cover story. The headline, like many
others that day, was accompanied by an image of a glowing celestial ring
framed by infinite blackness: the first image of a black hole. In his
first book, New York photographer Matthew Beck (born 1986) focuses on
the unveiling of this previously unseeable image by following it into
the depths of the New York City subway.
The book suggests the notion that the cosmos is not something to simply
be observed from our vantage point as humans, but more a system that we
are intrinsically a part of; and the true nature of the black hole seems
to be as elusive as the answer to humanity's most pressing question of
"why."