As drone photography has become commonplace, we have come to appreciate an entirely new perspective on our planet. Photos from above often reveal unexpected patterns and symmetries in our surroundings, but nowhere is this more evident than in satellite imagery.
Benjamin Grant has spent the past three years compiling the very best images from Google Earth's satellite photographs and compositing the images together to form larger panoramas of the planet. He stitches the huge vistas together, sometimes from as many as 25 individual images and publishes them on his Instagram feed, Daily Overview.
52·276355°, 4·557080° Every year, tulip fields in Lisse, Netherlands begin to bloom in March and are in peak bloom by late April. The Dutch produce a total of 4·3 billion tulip bulbs each year, of which 53% (2·3 billion) is grown into cut flowers. Of these, 1·3 billion are sold in the Netherlands as cut flowers and the remainder is exported: 630 million bulbs to Europe and 370 million elsewhere.
“I was inspired to start the project after I learned about the ‘Overview Effect,’” he says. “Coined by writer Frank White in 1987, the phrase speaks to the psychological shift that astronauts experience when they have an opportunity to look down and see the Earth as a whole. That vantage point inspires a new perspective of what it means to be alive, how everything that happens on the planet is connected, and how how we must work together to protect our planet. Later, when I realized I had the ability to compose and share these stunning Overview of our planet, the Overview Effect became the core mission (and source of the name) of the project and what I hoped to inspire for my audience. ”
Recently he’s published images of a public sauna located on the edge of the Baltic Sea, a flower bulb farm in the Netherlands, a glacial lake in southeast Iceland and sand dunes in Chad. All of them give a striking new perspective on the planet, perspectives that are near-impossible to gain from anything other than satellite imagery. His aim for the project is to increase awareness of the world’s beauty and therefore encourage people to conserve and protect it.
–0·000434°, 40·364929° Hagadera, seen here on the right, is the largest section of the Dadaab Refugee Camp in Northern Kenya and is home to 100,000 refugees. To cope with the growing number of displaced Somalis arriving at Dadaab, the UN has begun moving people into a new area called the LFO extension, seen here on the left. Dadaab is the largest refugee camp in the world with an estimated total population of 400,000
“You have an overwhelming sense of the time that would be required to create these staggering landscapes—erosion, build up of mountains—compared to what we’ve developed in the past 100 years,” Grant explains.
Some have confronted him over the nature of the project, pointing out that these photographs were not taken personally by Grant himself. “To those people I say that’s fine if you don’t want to consider me a photographer or an artist,” he says.
–22·983606°, –43·206638° Ipanema Beach is located in the South Zone of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Recognised as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, the sand is divided into segments by lifeguard towers known as ‘postos’.
“Perhaps to them, I could just be a storyteller. Ultimately, the images that you see in the book do not look like this anywhere else, so I would have to say it’s undeniable that there has been some artistic or photographic process on my behalf. Also I have to assume that the people who deliver that criticism simply don’t understand what takes place during the composition process to stitch the images together to make the final Overviews possible. ”
Grant's process is certainly an intensive one. He needs to ensure that the images stitch together properly, check that colours match and remain seamless throughout the larger composite, then tweak the final resulting image in Lightroom before it’s ready to share.
51·320417°, 4·327546° The Port of Antwerp in Belgium is the second largest port in Europe, behind the Port of Rotterdam. Over the course of a year, the port handles more than 71,000 vessels and 314 million tonnes of cargo. That weight is roughly equal to 68% of the mass of all living humans on the planet.
“What’s fascinating about this medium - as compared to something like aerial photography from a helicopter - is that there is no recognizable top and bottom to each image,” Grant points out. “Therefore that’s give me the flexibility to rotate the image as I see fit until I find the alignment and cropping that I think is most alluring. ”
Certainly, some of his images can appear almost otherworldly, so far outside of the scope of normal vision that they are jarring to look at.
38·485579°, –109·684611° Evaporation ponds are visible at the potash mine in Moab, Utah, USA. The mine produces muriate of potash, a potassium-containing salt that is a major component in fertilisers. The salt is pumped to the surface from underground brines and dried in massive solar ponds that vibrantly extend across the landscape. As the water evaporates over the course of 300 days, the salts crystallise out. The colours that are seen here occur because the water is dyed a deep blue, as darker water absorbs more sunlight and heat, thereby reducing the amount of time it takes for the water to evaporate and the potash to crystallise.
After three years working on the project, Grant has now compiled some of his best images into a photography book, ‘Overview’. The chapters of the book follow themes, the construction of which Grant says came to him in a kind of thought experiment. ”By that I mean I would start by considering the general themes that now constitute the first eight chapters of the book (agriculture, mining, energy, etc. ) and then looked for new locations to capture within those ideas. For example, if I wanted to show an Overview related to energy, I could begin with a search for a list of solar panel facilities. Then I could inspect those locations through the satellite imagery, keeping in mind that I would only include a location in the book if it had a very strong visual appeal or a particularly fascinating story to tell. ”
46·407676°, –87·530954° Tailings are the waste and by-products generated by mining operations. The tailings seen here were pumped into the Gribbens Basin, next to the Empire and Tilden Iron Ore Mines in Negaunee, Michigan, USA. Once the materials are pumped into the pond, they are mixed with water to create a sloppy form of mud known as slurry. The slurry is then pumped through magnetic separation chambers to extract usable ore and increase the mine’s total output. For a sense of scale, this Overview shows approximately 2. 5 square kilometres (1 square mile) of the basin.
With Overview, Grant hopes to illuminate more of the world in an accessible way and to really encourage people to conserve the unique, beautiful environments that his images portray. “I believe the Overview Effect is a powerful idea that needs to be shared and I think this book is the first time that it’s been packaged together with such a strong visual component and the research to back that up,” he says.
“Hopefully as the book finds itself in more people’s hands, people will approach these images with their own backgrounds and own experiences which will hopefully lead to even more collaboration and more opportunities to share them with the world. ”
30·327274°, 48·829255° Dendritic drainage systems are seen around the Shadegan Lagoon by Musa Bay in Iran. The word ‘dendritic’ refers to the pools’ resemblance to the branches of a tree, and this pattern develops when streams move across relatively flat and uniform rocks, or over a surface that resists erosion.
Overview is available to purchase here. You can learn more about Benjamin Grant and the Overview project on his website or on Instagram.
Cover Image: 40·782997°, –73·966741° Central Park in New York City, USA spans 341 hectares (843 acres), which is 6% of the island of Manhattan. One of the most influential innovations in the park’s design was its ‘separate circulation systems’ for pedestrians, cyclists, horse riders, and cars. The park contains numerous tennis courts and baseball fields, an ice-skating rink, and a swimming pool. It also serves as the finish line for the New York City Marathon and New York City Triathlon.
. digitalrev.com2016-10-24 03:00