If you ever need some encouragement for sticking with photography when times get tough, you should read about the adventures of Frank Hurley. Born in Australia in 1885, he took up photography as a young man and eventually became skilled enough to be selected as the official photographer for multiple expeditions to Antarctica and for the Australian military in both world wars. Among his many photographic escapades, one stands out from among the rest: being stranded in the Antarctic for nearly two years.
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In January 2010, NASA and the University of Arizona launched HiWish, a way for the public to become involved in the effort to photograph the surface of Mars. The website allows anyone to suggest locations on Mars to photograph next, and the winning entries are photographed using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, also known as “the people’s camera”, aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Since the program began, over 1,000 suggestions have been received, and NASA has just released the first 8 images selected through the program.

Now eight ordinary people can tell their grandchildren, “I helped photograph Mars.”

Image credit: Photograph by NASA