Comments on: Big Things in America

Big Things in America

mathowie — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:36:25 -0800

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]

By: robzster1977

robzster1977 — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:46:37 -0800

Amazing. Simply amazing.

By: apathy0o0

apathy0o0 — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:49:10 -0800

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

By: davy

davy — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 10:58:57 -0800

Y'all forgot Quonsar's penis.

By: Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese

Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:00:22 -0800

I thought it Quonsar's ego that was bigger?

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:06:01 -0800

Who doesn't want a free landfill?

By: nickyskye

nickyskye — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 11:36:35 -0800

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.

By: dersins

dersins — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:19:54 -0800

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.

By: TheDonF

TheDonF — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:22:46 -0800

This is very cool. It's making me very envious. Great post, thanks.

By: absalom

absalom — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:35:44 -0800

Quite excellent road trip. Your description of it is also better than adequate. I'm jealous!

By: odinsdream

odinsdream — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 12:39:51 -0800

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.

By: ook

ook — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:21:05 -0800

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.

By: Eekacat

Eekacat — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:28:07 -0800

These are great ook. Did you recapture your sense of wonder?

By: Popular Ethics

Popular Ethics — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:33:13 -0800

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.

By: ericb

ericb — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 13:35:52 -0800

I want the puppy!

By: ook

ook — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 15:34:18 -0800

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.

By: paulsc

paulsc — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 15:45:13 -0800

Well worth the hour I just spent looking through the photos. America's a Big Damn Country ®, idinit?

By: Ynoxas

Ynoxas — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 18:26:24 -0800

I know this is your post Matt, so how about giving the $30 to ook?

By: kalimac

kalimac — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 20:00:52 -0800

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?)

By: LeeJay

LeeJay — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 20:31:29 -0800

This was an excellent idea executed amazingly well. Thanks for the great pictures, ook!