A picture’s worth a thousand words.
Photo Courtesy of Daily Overview
Astronauts often refer to “the overview effect,” the moment, when looking down at Earth from space, they realize our smallness, our fragility and improbable existence, and the need for humanity to protect our one and only home. In Daily Overview, Benjamin Grant seeks to create this cognitive shift for the majority of people who will never travel to space. A Wired article describes his method, he begins by scrolling through Google Earth and selecting the most visually stunning and thought provoking images of both nature and man- “congested metropolises, stunning empty wilderness, and monstrous mining operations.” Then he uses color correction sparingly to emphasize the image, much like a photojournalist would edit a RAW file from their camera.
He hopes that the pictures will help us understand the beauty of Earth and the serious impact we’ve already had on it.
“What I’m really trying to get across here is that we’ve entered an important time in human history where our home has been significantly altered,” he told Wired.
Grant realizes the images can create conflicting emotions in viewers; the photos of shrinking ice sheets and light pollution from crowded cities are both beautiful and horrifying. The overhead shot of a Kenyan refugee camp is breathtaking because of its terrible atrocities and its sheer size. Grant likes this contradiction because it provokes people to think and learn more about environmental issues they might not have known previously.
The Daily Overview has a website, an Instagram account, and is currently featured at the Deutsches Museum until January 2016. Grant plans to use exhibitions like the one in Munich, as well as a possible upcoming book, to raise money for environmental causes and hopefully continue to raise awareness about the need to take care for Mother Earth.
The melting icecaps in West Antarctica
New York's considerable size and its light pollution
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