The Merchants of Nairobi

June 27, 2012 8:43 PM

Trading Places - photographer Steve Bloom's latest book focuses on the business people, shops, and signs of Nairobi. Take a panoramic walk down Kitengela Road in what is arguably the largest panoramic stitched together from hundreds of photos. In another clip, Bloom talks about his experiences taking the photos. (Via About:Blank)
posted by madamjujujive (3 comments total)

This is nice. I could tell from the traffic photo on the first link that he was giving an honest view of Nairobi. He does definitely give an honest view of parts of it, but he seems to focus on some of the lower-income areas in his wider shots, most of them looked like slum shops. Which is fine, its just not all of Nairobi (but it is one of the more flamboyant aspects of retail in the city, as he points out). The parts he's showing are definitely there, and he is giving a very realistic view of them. I would like to see him do a piece or two on the flamboyancy of the matatus.

Also sometimes I feel like its a requirement for any Swahili song to mention Yesu in the first 3 words.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:10 PM on June 27, 2012 [1 favorite]

Very cool.
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 10:34 PM on June 27, 2012

"Is this the widest ever continuous panoramic image?" It might be. I can't tell because I don't see where it says how wide it is. Regardless, framing it as such detracts from the message. (Especially since astronomers and such routinely create image mosaics millions of pixels across and the answer is probably "no.")
posted by rlk at 7:14 AM on June 28, 2012