This picture of the inauguration was taken with a robotic camera and weighs in at 1,474 megapixels (295 times the standard 5 megapixel camera). Click and zoom (and zoom, and zoom, and zoom). It’s awesome. Bonus points if you find Yo-Yo Ma…taking a picture with his iPhone. (I couldn’t, but I’m told he’s there so if you can, five points.)
*** Edit: The photo is by David Bergman ***
Nicola Griffith 
Ok, I found him. Took me about a minute. But how do I prove it?Amazing camera, huh?
Use words, e.g. ‘if that big pole near the middle is the centre, then track about halfway to the left, look for the people in the red hats, then…’ etc.
Oh, and thank you. It was driving me nuts!
Hey, where are the words? I want to find him too.
Tee hee!! I found him!! But it looks like Jennifer found him first. Dangit. :)Frakkin technology. Amazing schtuff there.
Start at the red-draped archway from whence Obama came, go up to the level above, and turn left at the kids in red hats.
Huh. Funny, it just didn’t occur to me that words might work.Chadao, you see it now? He’s up on the balcony behind the dais-thingy level. You see the arch in the middle with the red material? He’s above that to camera left a little. Above the red arch is some blue fabric. He is just to the left of the light post which is just left of center. The people with the red hats are immediately to camera right of him. Much faster to send a pic.
There are some strange trippy effects in the photo. If you look closely at Aretha, it appears as though a hat is floating in front of her. And I swear Clarence Thomas is taking a nap!
Wow, indeed.I remember when people used to say, “Digital photography will never have the resolution and clarity of film.” I always replied, “Digital will just keep getting better, you wait and see.” I wish I could say the same thing about our relationship to/with the planet.
For those who haven’t yet found Yo-Yo Ma, look at < HREF="http://www.nicolagriffith.com/images/YoYoMa.png" REL="nofollow">this<>. (Thanks, Jennifer.)
Yes, I see what you are talking about Rory. It looks like her whole head has been moved on top of the guy in front of her or something. I saw a couple other weird things too. One of them is easy to find – it’s at the very bottom of the image in the middle. Just to the right of two humongous lenses is a covered camera that is screwed up.This image is a composite of an untold number of photos. That is part of their system – software takes multiple files and composites them automatically into one giant panorama. The software is not perfect. But it is still impressive.In the not-very-distant future (if the apocalypse doesn’t come first) we will see all kinds of composite images. Images will be pulled from all over and composited into things that were never photographed as a whole. You will not know what is real and what is constructed.
I didn’t think of it, but I could’ve posted that on our gallery earlier. < HREF="http://an.aviewofonesown.com/" REL="nofollow">Here’s<> what Rory was talking about.And hey there’s some stuff I hadn’t seen yet on there. I noticed Karina had put some cool stuff up earlier, but I had missed Janine’s somehow.I find it annoying as hell that the gallery pix don’t stay in the order they are uploaded in.
Any points for spotting the Secret Service snipers on the rooftops?
I couldn’t help but notice how many of us most be thinking if we can do this why can’t we fix the world? I am hoping that this thought/meme will make us more and more open to the way we should be approaching life education possibly to the point of scrapping our current systems and becoming open to reinvolving everyone in the process. Greed and an insufferable sense of entitlement as us poised on the open mouth of chaos. All because we educate ourselves for the near future.Sorry to get so solemn here it is a great picture and that was a fine day.
I looked into this a little more. I’d heard about the system before, but didn’t really remember the details. They have a new gizmo (sans camera) anyone can buy to do this for only $250. That’s the robotic part that you mentioned Nicola – it pans the camera around. The original images were actually shot with a point and shoot camera. The photographer is selling very large prints. For the prints, he has had a pro go in and re-make the image without all of the glitches that Rory pointed out. The photographer is < HREF="http://www.davidbergman.net/blog/2009/01/28/inauguration-gigapan-prints-now-available/" REL="nofollow">David Bergman<>, and he tells how he made it on his blog.And, no <>rhbee<>, I didn’t wonder why we can’t fix the world when I saw this. I already know that we can fix the world if everyone really wanted to and would work together to do it. This photo/technology didn’t take nearly as much love as that will.
I found what appears to be Barbra Streisand and Brad Pitt…yes Clarence Thomas seemingly is snoozing…or frozen in place?
Who is the guy between Mary Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe? Aren’t they allowed to sit together, even at a Democrat’s inauguration?
< HREF="http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html" REL="nofollow">This is a video<> that talks about the technology I was talking about — photosynth. He doesn’t actually explain it very well, but you get the idea. He starts out talking about something that’s a part of it, and then about 3 minutes in gets to photosynth. It’s about how they can take random photos from all over and put them together as one composite to see all kinds of details into a sort of 3D (depending on how many images are used). It can link together photos from all over. It uses metadata to do find the images.Maybe you’ve heard of it Nicola – it’s from WA. Microsoft owns it now I think. Here’s the < HREF="http://livelabs.com/photosynth/" REL="nofollow">website about it<>, and here is a link to synths made of < HREF="http://photosynth.net/inauguration.aspx" REL="nofollow">the innauguration<>. You can go to their home link for more of them. Might have to install a plugin to see it tho. The synth of Times Square on the home page has a pretty good 3D effect. This will get better when there are more images put togethere.I know, I’m like a dog with a bone sometimes…