I'm John Batchel, visiting with the author Anika Burgess.

Her book, Flashes of Brilliance.

Anika is a photo editor and a photo historian, introducing us to the world of photography that's

born of a sudden in the middle of the 19th century.

Immediately, however, the personalities who are attracted to it, who monetize it, take it in the direction of an art

form or something people will pay for. There are other experiments, however, that are a fascination.

I'm looking at photographs of the moon. Anika, when I'm getting ready for your conversation,

wonderful, I have a new copy of Nature magazine that I've fallen behind looking.

They come out every week.

This is a peer-reviewed magazine.

There it is an image of the dark side of the moon.

Right there.

Bang.

So it's how long now, almost two centuries since they first dreamed of taking pictures of the moon,

we're still taking pictures.

And this is ordinary to us so that I didn't notice really that it was there until I read your book.

The moon was only ever perceived looking up at the night sky if it was clear.

But in taking photographs of it, what did it do for the culture that saw them for the first

time?

Well, I mean, I love the stories around the moon because I do think, you know, it's

interesting to consider how it is a presence in all of our lives every night.

And yet it was not able, no one had captured

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