The Big Picture
June 2, 2008 8:05 AM   Subscribe

The Big Picture The Boston Globe launches a new blog focusing on a large single image from the day's news. It's kind of surprising how rare it is to see a really big photo on newspaper sites these days and this blog makes the simple concept work. [via mefi projects]
posted by mathowie (45 comments total) 39 users marked this as a favorite
 
These are all totally fuckin photoshopped.


Seriously, though, you make a good point about the size of the images. I'd already seen, of course, the Chinese post-earthquake/wedding photo several times, but always much smaller than that, and true, bigger is better.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:14 AM on June 2, 2008


If by "photoshopped", you mean cropped, then yes, some of them are :)
posted by kokogiak at 8:16 AM on June 2, 2008


Yeah, man, that crop tool in photoshop is waaay overused :)
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:18 AM on June 2, 2008


neat. thanks for highlighting it.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:21 AM on June 2, 2008


...I saw the Projects post and this one appear simultaneously in RSS and came here to make sure the OP wasn't a shill. Whoops. RSS feeds ought to show posters' names.
posted by ardgedee at 8:23 AM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


RSS feeds ought to show posters' names.

They do, but most readers ignore the dc:author field of the RSS feeds
posted by mathowie at 8:26 AM on June 2, 2008


[this is good]
posted by drezdn at 8:26 AM on June 2, 2008


Thank you!!! Thank you very much.

Very appealing.
posted by cashman at 8:27 AM on June 2, 2008


That photo of Saturn. Is. The. Best. Thing.

Evar.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:28 AM on June 2, 2008


Engineer hacked by machetes wielded by Indians On A Bus. I love Earth.
posted by DU at 8:29 AM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


Also (bad linking on my part), if you click the image, or the "more images" link, there are about 8-12 more large photos for each entry.
posted by kokogiak at 8:29 AM on June 2, 2008


That photo of Saturn. Is. The. Best. Thing. Evar.

That whole post is magnificent. Equal parts Van Gogh, Twilight Zone, Qix and Tron. Awesome, just fantabulous.
posted by cashman at 8:32 AM on June 2, 2008


This is just great. Thank you. Saturns moons are made of icing sugar.
posted by merocet at 8:33 AM on June 2, 2008


I'll say it again. The Boston Globe is the most consistently interesting major U.S. newspaper.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:35 AM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]


This photo is also awesome.
posted by shakespeherian at 8:35 AM on June 2, 2008


Yep, those Saturn pictures are fucking amazing. Is this where the Clangers live?
posted by jontyjago at 8:35 AM on June 2, 2008


Thank you, mathowie. This is indeed an excellent step, but we must remain vigilant on our journey for freedom of expression, for there are still blogs out there that repress the use of images.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:47 AM on June 2, 2008 [8 favorites]


Your comment is most chuckle-worthy, weapons-grade, but I have a feeling even the Boston Globe would also repress images of, oh, say, human sexual relations with chickens...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:01 AM on June 2, 2008


Great. First time I've seen this full set.
posted by fire&wings at 9:05 AM on June 2, 2008


phenomenal, thanks!
posted by spinturtle at 9:06 AM on June 2, 2008


Thanks, this goes in my morning routine
posted by nicolin at 9:09 AM on June 2, 2008


blogs out there that repress the use of images.

I'm glad for it. If people posted stuff like this on MeFi it would be great (and probably illegal), but 90% of it was nose picking and butt scratching.
posted by stbalbach at 9:18 AM on June 2, 2008


The Earth is in the first Cassini image (though you can't see it in the stretch that the Boston Globe used). In fact, I think I can see Metafilter Towers....
posted by lukemeister at 9:26 AM on June 2, 2008


...90% of it was nose picking and butt scratching.

And the other 10% was humans having sexual relations with chickens...
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:29 AM on June 2, 2008


I like the site and have already added the RSS feed....but with resolutions of about 1000x700 it's more like The Sorta Kinda Big Picture.
posted by aerotive at 9:36 AM on June 2, 2008


The uncontacted tribe is so weird. Like they're living in in big hollowed out tree. I love that shit.
We should contact them for sure and give them a Coke. They may have some gold.
posted by Flex1970 at 10:06 AM on June 2, 2008


I was all like "so what... I see big pictures all the time" and then I clicked the link, saw the Saturn image and now I have to clean my pants.
posted by Kattullus at 11:21 AM on June 2, 2008


Wow, those are great.
posted by LobsterMitten at 11:46 AM on June 2, 2008


The German magazine Spiegel has a similar feature, which they call "Picture This".
posted by A Long and Troublesome Lameness at 12:01 PM on June 2, 2008


Très cool
Love it, thanks.
posted by bru at 12:21 PM on June 2, 2008


If I were a Korean, and I wanted to go protest American beef, I would leave my Yankees hat at home.
posted by Stylus Happenstance at 2:23 PM on June 2, 2008


Guess they couldn't get to close for fear of deadly helicopter destroying arrows.



So these people have NEVER seen a helicopter or anything else besides themselves and the jungle? Does "unconctacted" really mean they have had no contact with the outside world ever?

If so, that's fascinating.
posted by Defenestrator at 3:07 PM on June 2, 2008


Makes you wonder what's going through their heads when those photos were taken.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:26 PM on June 2, 2008


Thanks, I just subscribed to their feed.
posted by zzazazz at 3:56 PM on June 2, 2008


If I were a Korean, and I wanted to go protest American beef, I would leave my Yankees hat at home.

Hey, by now a Yankees baseball cap is as Korean as kimchi.

So these people have NEVER seen a helicopter or anything else besides themselves and the jungle?

I was wondering that as well, but I'd bet they've seen/heard aircraft passing overhead, jets and whatnot. May well have been their closest encounter with an aircraft, though.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:01 PM on June 2, 2008


In A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, he talks about returning to a city after being on the Appalachian Trail, and he relates a story about an Amazonian tribe taken to a city for the first time where they, according to him, collectively ("and lavishly") wet themselves.
posted by Corduroy at 5:06 PM on June 2, 2008


On Earth Day last April, NASA TV ran a special HD feed of views of Earth from the International Space Station. They simply showed shots of the ground passing below, with quiet commentary by a geographic scientist talking about what exactly you were seeing. The Shuttle/ISS moves at 17,500 MPH so things move by pretty fast -- you see something interesting, and 30 seconds later it's gone.

At one point they were flying over something bluish green and completely featureless. I thought it was ocean, until a red river threaded through it. Finally the commentator mentioned that it was "of course" the Amazon jungle. It just kept going and going and going and going. So if you can't imagine these tribes being surprised by aircraft, having never seen any aircraft before, you don't appreciate how impossibly vast and remote the Amazon jungle is.

More info about the NASA HD Earth Day feed here:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2008/apr/HQ_M08081_NASA_Airs_Earthviews_in_HDTV.html

and a rundown of exactly what they showed:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=11551.msg271519#msg271519

Fantastic post, thanks mathowie, favorited!
posted by intermod at 6:37 PM on June 2, 2008


This looks great, but I have to wonder if there's going to be presure on the project to censor and avoid controversy. There are many powerful but heartbreaking photos which some people simply don't want to be exposed to.
posted by homunculus at 8:58 PM on June 2, 2008


Wait a minute. There is already a blog called The Big Picture. And I like it better. Can my guy sue?
posted by wallstreet1929 at 9:11 PM on June 2, 2008


Funny, the pictures of the "uncontacted tribe" really bother me. I want to shout at the pilot (of what I'm assuming is a freakin' loud helicopter), "Look! They've got their bows out and they're trying to attack you - you're scaring the shit out of them! They're not an anthill to poke at! Leave them alone!" But no, pictures are more important so we can look, just to see.
Maybe it's all that I've read about the destruction of all the small villages of the Belgian Congo and all those tribes with their own beliefs and gods and spirits, and when they're dead or assimilated, so go their gods. There was a show about some (Western) people who tried to make contact with a tribe just like this, and it took forever because we're so different and alien to them.
I suppose the only fortunate thing is the people doing the flyover have the tribe's best interests at heart, but I'd hate to see them wearing t-shirts in a few years, or being visited by missionaries, or being part of a Coke commercial.

Maybe I could've articulated that better, but I'm still coming to grips on why it all bugs me, in a "We're from the 21st century. We're here to help you." sort-of-way.
posted by Zack_Replica at 9:42 PM on June 2, 2008


[this is [k]]

Have I mentioned before that kokogiak is one of my web.heroes? Yes, I believe I have.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:59 PM on June 2, 2008


dude. this is awesome. thanks!
posted by CitizenD at 1:44 AM on June 3, 2008


Bruce Schneier: The War on Photography
posted by homunculus at 10:12 AM on June 5, 2008


I'm a little surprised that with the fire hose of an image feed they have they can't manage a daily update. Sure they won't necessarily have a great set everyday but there will also be days with several good topics.
posted by Mitheral at 7:35 PM on June 21, 2008


Well, you could try it yourself to see how hard it is. You have virtually the same access to the AP feed, though maybe not at such high resolution. Go to the AP site, and sign up for access to their database. They claim to publish 1000 new photos every day.
posted by Dave Faris at 2:58 AM on June 22, 2008


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