circle up now

circle up now uses "human aerial art" to draw attention to issues of human rights, social justice and freedom. on july 12th, in 20 locations across the world, from kathmandu to tel-aviv to mexico, they organized thousands of amnesty international supporters to join together to form images of the words "freedom," "dignity" and "justice" representing the principles of the universal declaration of human rights. you can see more photos from circle up now's global day of action right here.

[all from circle up now's global day of action, july 12, 2008. top to bottom: malmoe, sweden. bamako, mali. karnataka, india.]

gps drawing

gps drawing is a kind of digital mark-making created using satellite navigation technologies. gps receivers record your digital trail thus "treating travel like a geodetic pencil or cartographic crayon." see more here.

[all from gps drawing. top to bottom: the oxford don (oxford, UK). 2001. meridians (greenwich park, UK). 2005. vegas dollar (las vegas, usa). 2004.]

archive • uc berkeley earth sciences + map library

the uc berkeley earth sciences & map library has some nice, mostly historical aerial photographs of the san francisco bay area. it's interesting to compare them aesthetically to google earth. look closely at the color image and you can see the freeway that collapsed in the east bay after the 1989 earthquake. enter the archive here.

[all from the uc berkeley library.]

archive is a weekly column by asha schechter that appears each wednesday on i heart photograph.

christopher becks

work by christopher becks, from the project saturated sea. take a look at more of christopher's stuff here.

[all christopher becks. saturated sea. 2004.]

alex maclean

aerial photos by pilot and photographer alex maclean. see more of his stuff here.

[all alex maclean. top to bottom: team disney sundial from the series playing. untitled from the series new works. unmarked tennis courts from the series playing.]

david maisel

these aerial photos of the american landscape by david maisel are pretty terrifically beautiful. you can see more of these here.

[all david maisel. from the series black maps / terminal image.]

the splendor and mystique of photogrammetry

first of all, how cool is the word photogrammetry? it sounds like a cultish photo-based religion, like a rogue faction of scientologists with leicas or something. second of all, how beautiful are these pictures? like nothing i've seen before, so detailed and abstract all at the same time. photogrammetry actually is "the science of deducing the physical dimension of objects from measurements on photographs." if you're curious, read more about it here.