Unseen images: Gigapixel photography and its viewers

Kate Palmer Albers

doi:10.1080/17540763.2014.895128

Unseen images: Gigapixel photography and its viewers

Kate Palmer Albers

Art, School of

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Photographs have long been recognized as providing a surfeit of information. This article takes up the recent emergence of gigapixel photography in its various forms as a technology in which the appeal of maximum image density is taken for granted. The article considers the "snapshot" mode of gigapixel photography as it reconfigures the conventional relationship of the viewer of a photograph to the place depicted. By providing an extraordinary quantity of photographic information for a viewer within every single frame, gigapixel "snapshots" produce images that anticipate the active participation of a future viewer, expect multiple reconfigurations of framing edges, and rely on unanticipated content for value and meaning.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	11-22
Number of pages	12
Journal	Photographies
Volume	7
Issue number	1
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/17540763.2014.895128
State	Published - 2014

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Cultural Studies
Communication
Visual Arts and Performing Arts

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10.1080/17540763.2014.895128

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title = "Unseen images: Gigapixel photography and its viewers",

abstract = "Photographs have long been recognized as providing a surfeit of information. This article takes up the recent emergence of gigapixel photography in its various forms as a technology in which the appeal of maximum image density is taken for granted. The article considers the {"}snapshot{"} mode of gigapixel photography as it reconfigures the conventional relationship of the viewer of a photograph to the place depicted. By providing an extraordinary quantity of photographic information for a viewer within every single frame, gigapixel {"}snapshots{"} produce images that anticipate the active participation of a future viewer, expect multiple reconfigurations of framing edges, and rely on unanticipated content for value and meaning.",

author = "Albers, {Kate Palmer}",

note = "Funding Information: Ubiquitous gigapixel cameras may transform the central challenge of photography from the question of where to point the camera to that of how to mine the data. (Brady et al. 386) In June, 2012, a team of researchers from Duke University, the University of Arizona, and the Distant Focus Corporation made this claim on the public introduction of their work developing the AWARE-2 camera.2 Funded in part by the United States government{\textquoteright}s Defense Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA), the AWARE-2 camera has the potential to create a 50-gigapixel image. The unprecedented resolution of the image and the detail in a distant subject presents an abundance of information that is in keeping with the medium{\textquoteright}s historical technological trajectory of valuing image density.",

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Unseen images: Gigapixel photography and its viewers

Abstract

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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