Comments on: The Big Picture

The Big Picture

mathowie — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:05:20 -0800

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]

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:14:32 -0800

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.

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:16:14 -0800

If by "photoshopped", you mean cropped, then yes, some of them are :)

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:18:14 -0800

Yeah, man, that crop tool in photoshop is waaay overused :)

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:21:18 -0800

neat. thanks for highlighting it.

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:23:34 -0800

...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.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:26:28 -0800

RSS feeds ought to show posters' names. They do, but most readers ignore the dc:author field of the RSS feeds

By: drezdn

drezdn — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:26:30 -0800

[this is good]

By: cashman

cashman — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:27:25 -0800

Thank you!!! Thank you very much. Very appealing.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:28:09 -0800

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

By: DU

DU — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:29:39 -0800

Engineer hacked by machetes wielded by Indians On A Bus. I love Earth.

By: kokogiak

kokogiak — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:29:51 -0800

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.

By: cashman

cashman — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:32:11 -0800

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.

By: merocet

merocet — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:33:34 -0800

This is just great. Thank you. Saturns moons are made of icing sugar.

By: stupidsexyFlanders

stupidsexyFlanders — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:35:07 -0800

I'll say it again. The Boston Globe is the most consistently interesting major U.S. newspaper.

By: shakespeherian

shakespeherian — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:35:07 -0800

This photo is also awesome.

By: jontyjago

jontyjago — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:35:57 -0800

Yep, those Saturn pictures are fucking amazing. Is this where the Clangers live?

By: weapons-grade pandemonium

weapons-grade pandemonium — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 08:47:46 -0800

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.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:01:52 -0800

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...

By: fire&wings

fire&wings — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:05:40 -0800

Great. First time I've seen this full set.

By: spinturtle

spinturtle — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:06:31 -0800

phenomenal, thanks!

By: nicolin

nicolin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:09:05 -0800

Thanks, this goes in my morning routine

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:18:04 -0800

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.

By: lukemeister

lukemeister — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:26:24 -0800

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....

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:29:07 -0800

...90% of it was nose picking and butt scratching. And the other 10% was humans having sexual relations with chickens...

By: aerotive

aerotive — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:36:14 -0800

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.

By: Flex1970

Flex1970 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 10:06:37 -0800

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.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:21:54 -0800

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.

By: LobsterMitten

LobsterMitten — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:46:02 -0800

Wow, those are great.

By: A Long and Troublesome Lameness

A Long and Troublesome Lameness — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:01:39 -0800

The German magazine Spiegel has a similar feature, which they call "Picture This".

By: bru

bru — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:21:33 -0800

Très cool Love it, thanks.

By: Stylus Happenstance

Stylus Happenstance — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:23:59 -0800

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

By: Defenestrator

Defenestrator — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:07:43 -0800

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.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:26:57 -0800

Makes you wonder what's going through their heads when those photos were taken.

By: zzazazz

zzazazz — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 15:56:59 -0800

Thanks, I just subscribed to their feed.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:01:04 -0800

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.

By: Corduroy

Corduroy — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:06:01 -0800

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.

By: intermod

intermod — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:37:35 -0800

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!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 20:58:03 -0800

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.

By: wallstreet1929

wallstreet1929 — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:11:45 -0800

Wait a minute. There is already a blog called The Big Picture. And I like it better. Can my guy sue?

By: Zack_Replica

Zack_Replica — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 21:42:39 -0800

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.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 22:59:32 -0800

[this is [k]] Have I mentioned before that kokogiak is one of my web.heroes? Yes, I believe I have.

By: CitizenD

CitizenD — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 01:44:57 -0800

dude. this is awesome. thanks!

By: homunculus

homunculus — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:12:04 -0800

Bruce Schneier: The War on Photography

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 19:35:42 -0800

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.

By: Dave Faris

Dave Faris — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:58:28 -0800

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.