Big Things in America

August 5, 2006 10:36 AM

ook asked for a list of big things in America to go out and take photos of. We gave him a list, and he went out and shot it: Big Things in America. I love it when a plan comes together. [via mefi projects]
posted by mathowie (19 comments total)

Amazing. Simply amazing.
posted by robzster1977 at 10:46 AM on August 5, 2006

Is he knitting together several pictures for those insanely beautiful panoramas, or are those made with a crazy camera lens?
posted by apathy0o0 at 10:49 AM on August 5, 2006

Y'all forgot Quonsar's penis.
posted by davy at 10:58 AM on August 5, 2006

I thought it Quonsar's ego that was bigger?
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 11:00 AM on August 5, 2006

Who doesn't want a free landfill?
posted by Meatbomb at 11:06 AM on August 5, 2006

Instead listen to the sun heating the metal roof, causing a long stream of pings and rattles that sound exactly like a heavy rain.

Nice, honest writing. Here too.
Loved this amazing road runner. Presumably the old car parts and used shoes is some sort of play on the idea of the bird's name?

Quietly funny. Gently surrealistic. wow. Strange in a desolate way.

Interesting about the dune ridge vibrating. Wonder why? Loved this pic. Space, the final frontier. Rolling. Amazing. Surprising.

Would have liked maps to place the images, maybe a little more info about each place and an arrow button so the pics could be seen one after the other instead of going back to the home page after each pic.

Wonderful trip.
posted by nickyskye at 11:36 AM on August 5, 2006

Is he knitting together several pictures for those insanely beautiful panoramas, or are those made with a crazy camera lens?

They appear to be several photos stitched together.
posted by dersins at 12:19 PM on August 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

This is very cool. It's making me very envious. Great post, thanks.
posted by TheDonF at 12:22 PM on August 5, 2006

Quite excellent road trip. Your description of it is also better than adequate. I'm jealous!
posted by absalom at 12:35 PM on August 5, 2006

I could've sworn the crater lake picture was a wide-angle lens, but after reading the description, it is apparently stitched. Was this done with software? It's a very, very good job. Some of the others had telltale stitching artifacts, but not that one.
posted by odinsdream at 12:39 PM on August 5, 2006

Hey, wow. I didn't expect this to make it to the blue!

The panoramic photos are indeed stitched together, generally from between 10 and 30 separate shots, using autostitch, which is infinitely superior to all other software. The ones from early in the trip tend to show more artifacts because it took me a while to figure out that I needed to set the same exposure for every shot, not re-adjust as I turned around -- that's why the weird color banding in Amboy for example. But, yeah, all hail autostitch, it's great.

Thanks, everyone. For the suggestions of places to go, and for the kind words here. This trip was really just exactly what I needed.
posted by ook at 1:21 PM on August 5, 2006

These are great ook. Did you recapture your sense of wonder?
posted by Eekacat at 1:28 PM on August 5, 2006

Is ook around? I love his gasworks park shots. I would love to get high-res copies for my office. I'm trying to make my work environment more liveable.
posted by Popular Ethics at 1:33 PM on August 5, 2006

I want the puppy!
posted by ericb at 1:35 PM on August 5, 2006

Eekacat -- I'm not sure I captured it, but I at least spent some time in its presence. For the time being that'll do.

Popular Ethics: sure, I'll email you.

ericb: So do I, now that you mention.
posted by ook at 3:34 PM on August 5, 2006

Well worth the hour I just spent looking through the photos.

America's a Big Damn Country ®, idinit?
posted by paulsc at 3:45 PM on August 5, 2006

I know this is your post Matt, so how about giving the $30 to ook?
posted by Ynoxas at 6:26 PM on August 5, 2006

Wow, amazing. I forget how much I love the desert...

Did Mt. Ranier look apocalyptic to anyone else? (It's just so huge and there, you know?)
posted by kalimac at 8:00 PM on August 5, 2006

This was an excellent idea executed amazingly well. Thanks for the great pictures, ook!
posted by LeeJay at 8:31 PM on August 5, 2006