Makes you wonder what other similar ideas are out there! You can bet McCarthy is already thinking some.
p.s.: My brush with celebrity is that I saw an Andrew McCarthy post on Quora when he was first getting started with astrophotography and gave him a few tips. Always important to remember that everyone was a beginner at one point: https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-pro-tips-for-astrophotog...
My personal definition of "genius," is someone who sees things from a different angle, and can express it in terms we can implement.
It's not doing well on IQ tests; It's that ability to think "outside the box," and, crucially, to express that vision in terms that us normies can use.
Doing that kind of flight at night (makes sense for lidar! not so much for photo..), against a clear sky with at least some stars, and stacking the resulting photos, would give you a grid pattern of green/red/white aircraft running lights in front of the heavens.
There are examples of planes silhouetting the sun or moon. There are examples of the ISS. There are examples of planets (Mercury/Venus) crossing the sun, not the moon (obviously). I think someone else mentioned rockets being captured too.
People have also done similar with the moons of other planets. And of course that's how exoplanets have been discovered by looking the effects of a planet crossing between our line of sight of its host star.
https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1611128761776492544/
https://x.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/1479541092693381120/
https://spaceflightnow.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Statio...
https://www.universetoday.com/articles/spectacular-image-sho...
Just so we don't all think one person is the only one to do this
Excuse me while I go wash off the stench of AI-generated descriptions. The picture is very nice, though.
again, what would one expect from a site that has that feel of doing nothing than hoping to generate a viral headline just to infect those unfortunate to have actually followed the link
Dead giveaway
I don’t mind AI content. But I’m not going to read it carefully before commenting, and will double check it with real sources before changing my mind about anything.
Of course that brings a whole another set of problems.
The "dead giveaways" are not writing patterns, it is depth. AI will stay at a surface level when using argumentative writing patterns, whereas humans will add supporting information and connect the dots across sentences and paragraphs. It is the lack of connective language between thoughts and phrases that flag an AI.
As a sales strategy, making his photos limited edition is a fantastic way to put the pressure on to actually buy instead of thinking about making a purchase indefinitely, even if from a convenience standpoint it’s a little annoying. Looks like right now the 16”x20” edition is sold out, but other sizes are still available for about two days.
But, I guess we just have to have an art budget with some money already set aside if we want to jump on opportunities when artists do this. I respect it, but yes it's a bit inconvenient.
PS. The full, uncropped shot is even more incredible IMO: https://cosmicbackground.io/cdn/shop/files/Overhead_black_li...
Marketing is far more complex then you're giving it credit for. Take the Factorio game, they don't have sales ever so the best time to buy the game is now. This both keeps people that buy things on sale even if they don't like it from getting it, and keeps other people that may wait for a sale and forget about it from not buying it now.
The same is true for limited numbers. Some people may want it and put it in the cart, but never actually buy it because there is no strong binary motivator. This motivator can actually increase sales quickly and ensure you dont hold inventory for long periods of time.
Also things are commonly bought in batches to reduce price. Your one painting later could either be much more expensive or require the artist to buy 50/100 units at once that risk becoming stuck inventory.
If the piece sold out, he made his money.
FWIW, limited edition printing is absolutely standard practice for working artists who use media that can be easily or mechanically replicated, including photographers, printers, and digital artists.
The feeling of FOMO that it instills is indeed one reason, that benefits the artist, but the main reason limited editions are used is to add value to the art through scarcity, and this reason benefits you the buyer. People don’t want to be the first to find and buy something unique only to have it get so popular that all your friends and neighbors go buy the same thing, right?
The story of uniqueness is important. There’s a very real perception that art that can be reproduced indefinitely and is always available is cheap and not really fine art. Limited editions prints are trying, even if half-heartedly, to compete with painters and sculptors who produce something unique every single time. I say half-heartedly as a digital artist who prints limited editions, not as an insult. There is a slight degree of having cake and eating too. Limited editions are usually sized near the estimated sales limit, or such that the artist can move on to selling other work without feeling like they lost a big opportunity.
Limited edition print runs do lower the price of a print, but not as low as the cost of printing. If an artist does editions of size 1, they need to make enough money to live, and $90/print won’t do it if you only sell one. You can spread the profit across a run and give a group of people something for a low price instead of giving one person a high price.
Photography can be printed basically on-demand owing to the nature of the medium.
It doesn't mean that limited runs in photography are less valid, though. Once that print is editioned no reputable artist will just print more. (although there are ways around it, like different colorways) It definitely makes the item more "collectible".
The economics of the limited edition part is still the same for printmaking though, right? The printmaker could choose to make a single print and then sell the plate, or destroy the plate, and it would be closer to sculpture - a one of a kind piece of art. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are one or two printmakers that do this and can sell a single print at a time for enough money to make a living. But I think it’s more common to do a limited edition run and sell multiple copies, same as photographers, no?
Sure that's not exactly fine art, but there's a big market for it, including things like collectors. Virtually all concert posters are printed this way, for instance.
Why not somewhere in between those options:
For example (made up numbers), sell 100 units at $100 after which the price goes up by $10 for each additional sale. So the 100th unit would be $100, the 101st unit $110, the 200th unit $1100, and so on.
Your idea reminded me of something I’ve thought about trying. It’s not the same concept exactly, but I do digital art sometimes and I was thinking of selling it with copyrights and the generator program included, and allowing the buyer to do whatever they want with it, including sell copies. The thing I was thinking is that I’d start with a low price per piece, and increase the price slightly every time I sell one, so the prices of my pieces would ramp up over time, rather than the prices of prints in a single edition.
Like if a photo of Philippe Petit's WTC wire walking were instead masked and replaced with separately shot towers—it'd represent the event but technically not the actual snapshot in time it occurred, which kind of reduces the connection with the interesting concept at least for me.
I captured my friend transiting the sun during a skydive - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45919692 - Nov 2025 (12 comments)
What meanings, a reader might ask? First to say, art and mythos can have layers of meanings..There is no "right answer" exactly. think for yourself a moment about "falling" "The Sun", "a son", endeavor, catastrophe, and add knowledge or fate as you see fit.
