On Assignment: Photographing the NASA Artemis II Launch

This year I have been fortunate to photograph both the rollout and the launch of NASA’s Artemis II rocket. The rollout (as shown above) happened at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on Saturday, January 17, 2026. And luckily for me the launch, which was supposed to happen in early February, got pushed back until April 1, 2026 due to hydrogen leaks in the first fueling tests. Since I have been traveling an incredible amount this year already, it was a matter of luck that I was able to get out to Florida for the launch. It is always an honor to be out at Kennedy Space Center and to document the incredible work of the NASA employees–and this launch especially was quite the experience.

Having photographed the Artemis I launch back in 2022, I was able to procure a media badge this year for Artemis II. In 2022, I ended up photographing the launch for Amazon Alexa, since Alexa was running in the unmanned capsule. This time around I did not have an end client for my images but still went out and photographed the launch hoping to build up my relationship with NASA. I have been working on this relationship for a long time. My first interaction with NASA was going out to Johnson Space Center and giving a presentation on my work to the in-house NASA photographers stationed there. Since, I have also been one of the judges for the NASA Photographer of the Year competition for the last seven years.

While the rollout of the rocket is less of a thrill than the actual launch, it is still quite an event to see the 322 foot (98 meters) tall rocket emerge from the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and roll towards Launch Pad LC-39B. The NASA Crawler-Transporter 2, which moved the Artemis II rocket out to the launch pad creeps along at a maximum speed of up to 1 mph (1.6 kph) so as it moves past the media below there are plenty of opportunities to photograph it from various angles. For the rollout, there were also quite a few NASA employees (as shown below) that had worked on the rocket and who were there to see all of their hard work make its way to the launch pad. Notably, when it emerged from the VAB, we could see “America 250” emblazoned on the solid rocket boosters celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America.

After the rollout, I was off to Nepal, Bhutan, and Japan for the next five weeks. I kept an eye on the fueling tests and the proposed launch dates to see if I would even be in the USA to photograph the launch. I expected some delays given the similar hydrogen leaks that plagued the Artemis I launch, but I didn’t quite expect it to push the delay back two full months. Also, Artemis II was scheduled to be another night launch–similar to Artemis I. The Artemis 1 launch (shown below) took place at 1:47 AM on November 16, 2022 and as you can see here it was a very difficult launch to photograph because of the extreme contrast. For that launch the plumes of the rocket were so bright it was as if the sun came out at night. Once Artemis I cleared the tower you basically could not see the rocket at all–and all we could see from the ground was the intensely bright white plume of the rocket in a pitch black sky. Hence, I wasn’t sure if it was even worth it to go back out and photograph the Artemis II launch if it ended up being a night launch as the photographs would basically look the same.

In the launch calendar that NASA published back in January, there were only two days where Artemis II was slated to launch in daylight. April 1 was the first daylight launch window and the other one was the last date at the end of April. Of course, regardless of when it launched we all hoped the launch would go smoothly and the four astronauts on board would come back safely. But, when I saw that April 1 launch window starting just before sunset I was secretly hoping that somehow the launch would be delayed until April 1st. And as we all now know, that April 1 launch date ended up being the day it launched.

Right up until a few days before the launch, I was hemming and hawing as to whether or not I should actually go out for the launch. When I applied for the media badge, I also applied to place remote cameras close to the rocket as well. Sadly I did not get clearance for placing remote cameras this time around but I still had a media pass to photograph the launch from the Press Site, which is 3.4 miles (5.47 km) away from the launch pad. The Press Site is basically the closest viewing point for the launch so it is still a pretty epic spot to be at for a launch.

When I photographed the Artemis I launch it felt quite a bit different because it was an unmanned flight test. With Artemis II, there were four astronauts onboard including Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen and there was obviously a lot more at stake this time around. The Artemis I launch drew a lot of people to watch the launch but nothing like the Artemis II launch. It is estimated that 400,000 people gathered at various locations along the Florida space coast to watch Artemis II blast off. It was the largest crowd for any launch since the Apollo era launches fifty-three years ago. For those of us at the Press Site, we were instructed to arrive at least seven hours in advance. I arrived at the Press Site at 10:00 AM, a full eight and a half hours early.

Once on site, everyone is getting set up and placing tripods and gear out in the grassy field to claim a spot in front of the press buildings. The later you show up the more limited the choices are for claiming a spot. I chose a spot with a clear view of the rocket and with the lagoon in the foreground. From my prior experience photographing the Artemis I launch, I knew that a 400mm lens was about the right focal length for a horizontal composition. At the Artemis I launch, I had a Nikkor 500mm lens, which was an awesome tight composition but I thought after the fact that it was a bit too tight, especially considering the high resolution cameras we have these days. Hence for Artemis II, I brought three camera bodies for a variety of different compositions including my Nikon Z9 and Z8 as well as my FUJIFILM GFX100 II. For lenses, I had a Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8, a Nikkor Z 400mm f/4.5, a Nikkor Z 24-70mm and the 1.4x teleconverter as well. For the GFX100 II medium format camera I brought the incredible GF250mm lens along with the 1.4x Teleconverter for that lens.

I had three tripods (two Gitzos and one Really Right Stuff) all set up next to each other as shown above. I had the Nikon Z8 and the 70-200mm lens set up for a vertical composition at a wider focal length to capture the launch with some room to have the rocket a fair ways off the pad. I had the Nikon Z9 set up with the aforementioned 400mm lens in a horizontal composition–this was my tightest composition. And last, I had the GFX100 II set up for a vertical composition with the GF250 and the 1.4x teleconverter. The GF250 plus the teleconverter made that lens a 350mm focal length, which in 35mm terms is equivalent to about 273mm. I also had all three cameras tethered together with three Pocket Wizard transceivers so that when I triggered the Z9 the other two cameras would fire off as well. All cameras were set to capture raw images at their fastest frame rates–which for the Nikons was 20 fps and for the GFX was 8 fps. Working at the maximum frame rates meant that I could create a timelapse video of the launch with my still images after the fact.

Below are a few of the frames from the Nikon Z9 with the 400mm lens. This horizontal composition gave me a great set up for a tight shot of the launch off the pad. I love how the rocket’s plume billows even after the rocket is out of the frame. My exposure settings on the Z9 were 1/2500th second shutter speed, f/8 and ISO 200. These are the exact same settings I used for the Artemis I night launch back in 2022. This exposure setting is basically one full stop below the ambient exposure.

On the Z8 I set the exposure slightly differently, I underexposed just a bit more by using a shutter speed of 1/3200th second, and also at f/8 and ISO 200. The difference, only a third of a stop was minimal but I wanted to experiment for future launches. As no one had ever photographed a daytime launch of Artemis before, there wasn’t a consensus among my fellow photographers as to what was the best exposure setting for a daytime launch. Because of this I set all of my cameras to slightly different exposure settings. I set the FUJIFILM GFX100 II to 1/2,000th second at f/8 and ISO 200. Below you can see the wider composition I had setup on my Nikon Z8 and the 70-200mm lens.

With the GFX100 II, which is a 102 MP camera, I knew that it could handle the dynamic range a bit better so I did not underexpose as much with that setup. As shown below, I had a slightly tighter vertical composition than with the Nikon Z8 setup shown above. I knew that I could crop a horizontal image out of the GFX vertical composition and still have a roughly 57 MP image. Hence, there were plenty of megapixels to play with and the vertical composition just gave me more options.

It would have been great to have all three cameras set up at different areas of the Press Site to get a wider variety of images with people in the foreground and other elements in the frame but I was worried that the Pocket Wizard transceivers might not fire off the other two cameras. There were of course a lot of other news outlets present at the press site, including the NASA live feed, with huge lights and transmitters all around that could have interfered with my transmitters. As shown below the live NASA feed had an entire set built up with astronauts and newscasters commentating on the launch as it happened and for hours before. In the background of this same image you can see the NBC and CBS buildings as well with similar newscast setups on the roofs of the buildings. Hence, that is why I kept my cameras relatively close together.

Luckily towards the end of the day, there was not as much heat distortion as there was early in the hottest part of the afternoon. When I took test shots earlier in the day, around 1 PM the rocket was noticeably soft from the heat distortion and the far distance we were from the rocket. This is not unusual when using long telephoto lenses in the middle of the day. Thankfully all of the images were tack sharp in the evening light when the rocket did launch.

In terms of autofocus, I focused on the rocket with each camera and then I turned the autofocus off on all the cameras that were on the tripods just to make sure nothing shifted when the countdown got close to zero and I initiated the exposures. I also had my compositions locked in and figured out hours before the launch so that there was little that could go wrong when the rocket launched. Additionally, I tested out the Pocket Wizard transceivers a few times to make sure they would fire all three cameras and not stop until the rocket left the frame of each camera’s composition.

In addition to the three cameras I had set up on tripods, I also borrowed a fourth camera set up from Nikon Professional Services, which had an entire cache of gear onsite. For this fourth setup I got a Nikon Z8 and a Nikkor Z 100-400mm zoom lens. I set this camera up to fire off at 15 fps and with full autofocus tracking and laid it on my camera bag at my feet. The idea was that when the rocket left the launch pad and left the frame for all of the compositions I had set up with the tripod mounted cameras, I would then pick up the Z8 and the 100-400 and could continue photographing the rocket as it flew into the upper atmosphere above the press site as shown below.

The 100-400mm lens proved to be a versatile focal length for these grab and go images with the rocket far above us, but in hindsight, I would have also had a fifth camera with an 800mm lens on it as well to get a really tight shot of the solid rocket boosters (SRBs) coming off the rocket. I did manage to get an image of the SRBs falling away from the rocket but they were tiny in the frame. Once the rocket was well beyond our atmosphere, which only took eight minutes or so, there were plume formations in the sky making for wild abstract images. I keep on shooting well past the launch looking for shapes, colors and anything that seemed interesting. Nearly an hour after the rocket launched the plume was still spinning around in the sky basking in the last light of the day and glowing bright orange and red against the deep blue sky.

At the very end of the day, the moon rose just above the low clouds on the eastern horizon and I happened to be in the parking lot putting away gear. There were several photographers that saw this and quickly pulled out a camera and lens to capture the moon rising. From my vantage point I also had the USA and NASA flags in the foreground as well. This seemed like a wild scenario to see the full moon rising on the horizon just after Artemis II launched and was soon to be heading towards the moon.

Of course, as an assignment photographer I am used to having a lot more access and creating a much wider variety of images. Hopefully at some point I will have more access and can get a wider variety of images for NASA, National Geographic, or some other major news outlets. This was only my second Artemis launch, and my second rocket launch of any kind, so I have learned a lot in just a few outings.

After the cameras were packed away, we started downloading images on our laptops and stayed at the Press Site knowing that traffic would be in a huge snarl for many hours to come. I left at around 11 PM thinking that surely most of the traffic would have cleared out. My hotel was in Orlando, about an hour away so I had a ways to go before I could get to sleep. Leaving five hours after the launch, I still ran into bumper to bumper traffic on the outskirts of Orlando. What is normally a 50 minute drive out to Kennedy Space Center took nearly two hours and I arrived back at the hotel at around 1:30 AM.

It was only in the following days that I realized what this launch meant to many of us around the world. As I wrote in my Spring 2026 Newsletter editorial entitled “A Glimmer of Hope”:

In the days that followed after the launch, it became clear to me—and all of us for that matter—just what a big deal this was. In these dark days; with war fomenting in Iran, a President who has completely lost touch with reality, and the world changing at breakneck speed, it was soothing to see scientists, engineers, pilots and experts in their fields all come together for an ambitious mission to go to the Moon. Sure, we have been to the Moon before. We aren’t necessarily breaking new ground here. But just as with the Apollo missions in the late 60s and early 70s, when humans dare to venture farther than they ever have before in such a grandiose manner, that awakens something in all of us. For ten days as the four astronauts flew to the Moon and back, there was a glimmer of hope that humanity is not doomed. If we can go to the Moon, perhaps we can come together and solve our big problems like climate change, inequality, racism, greed, war and many others.

In addition to the glimmer of hope the Artemis II mission gave us all, they came back with some absolutely stunning images as well. I had a feeling that some of the images would become iconic but when those images from the far side of the Moon started streaming in we got a whole new perspective not only of the moon but also of our planet. I would also say that still photography in general had a moment when these images created by the astronauts started streaming in. The astronauts captured video as well in some scenarios but it was the still images that really struck a chord with us Earthlings. Below are a few of my favorite images captured by the astronauts.

My thanks to NASA for the inspiration and the incredible mission to the moon and back–and for the media pass to allow me to be there on site for the launch of Artemis II. I have high hopes that I will be able to go back and document the Artemis III and Artemis IV launches as well here in the next few years–and hopefully expand the coverage and access.