Monday, May 29, 2006

Gigapxl Project


I first discovered the Gigapxl Project thanks to my dad who read about it in a magazine. What is the Gigapxl Project? It is an amazing photographic project that is probably best described by those involved with it. Here is the project's Vision as described on the website:

Defining the upper limits of large-format photography, digital scanning and image processing, custom-built Gigapxl™ cameras capture images with unprecedented resolution.

It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera to capture as much information as that contained in a single Gigapxl™ exposure.

The Project's near-term goal is to compile a coast-to-coast Portrait of America; photographing her cities, parks and monuments in exquisite detail.

A longer term goal is to create for future generations a world-wide archive of vanishing cultural and archaeological sites.

Thanks to my dad's timely discovery, I was able to see the Exhibition at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego last summer. I had seen the pictures on the website before going to the museum exhibition, but nothing quite compares to seeing them in person!

The Gigapxl Project captures such a wide variety of experiences. Some of my favorites are scenic shots of places such as the Grand Canyon, Big Sur, the Great Fountain Geyser in Yellowstone, and the recently added Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Arizona. They also have amazing shots of Times Square, the Space Shuttle Discovery, the Mormon Temple in San Diego, a Panorama of San Diego seen from Coronado, and even Petco Park! To see the images I mentioned above, just click on the names to go directly to that image in the gallery.

The site also shows how the spectacular resolution allows to zoom in on specific parts of the pictures. My favorite is probably the photo of Black's Beach, a famous (infamous?) clothing-optional beach in San Diego. They actually had to pixelate the features of some of the people in the photo to protect their privacy. And they captured some men up on the cliffs with telescopes and such trying to see down to the beach LOL! To see more of the images, visit the Image Gallery.

Since all of us are not able to travel along with the Gigapxl Project, we can keep up with the progress via the website. They keep a travelogue as well as a map that shows all the places visited. You can even download the gallery images to use as wallpaper on your computer! In fact, the pictures here in this post are the wallpaper images I downloaded to use on my computer.

I, for one, can't wait until they start the world-wide journey! If you are interested in learning more, feel free to go explore the projects website, http://www.gigapxl.org/


1 comment:

Stacy~ said...

These are some gorgeous pictures! I like the whole gigapxl thing!