Michael Benson, Creator of Beyond

Michael Benson is a photographer, writer, and filmmaker. During the last decade he has staged a series of increasingly large-scale exhibitions of planetary landscape photography internationally, and during the same period he has authored three illustrated books with space themes. His last book, Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle (Abrams, October 2010; Japanese edition 2011) was well reviewed in The New York Times, The LA Times, and other publications.

Benson’s Beyond planetary exhibition projects, which feature photographs processed and assembled by him from raw spacecraft image data, have been presented at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum (May 2010-May 2011) and Hasted-Krauetler Gallery in New York (February-March 2011), among other venues. They are based in part on his book Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes, (Abrams 2003; paperback 2008; kid’s edition 2009), which has been published in six languages.

As a writer and photographer Benson has contributed feature articles and photographs to many magazines, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, and Rolling Stone. He has also written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other newspapers, including many Op-Ed pieces. His 2003 article for The New Yorker on NASA’s mission to Jupiter, “What Galileo Saw,” was reprinted in the anthology The Best of Best American Science Writing (HarperCollins, 2010). Benson’s film Predictions of Fire (1995) premiered at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals and won several best documentary awards internationally.

Recently he worked with director Terrence Malick to help produce space sequences for Malick’s upcoming film Tree of Life. He has also contributed planetary photography to Patricio Guzmán for his film Nostalgia for the Light (2011). Benson’s next two books, Planetfall and Nanocosmos, also for Abrams, will focus on new solar system photography and electron microscope photography respectively. He is also planning to start an image-based blog, More Places Forever. He lives in New York City with his wife and son.

There is also a  personal walk-through with the artist available for $35.00.  Slots are filling fast!  Limited to 25 folks. Call for paid credit card reservation - 778-4398.