yet one more: landsat image of cancun with a pair of edits
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Monthly Archives: November 2009
still obsessing on this landsat stuff / parana river
black hills, south dakota via landsat … edited, and edited.
original images via landsat / usgs / nasa. two accompanying edits by way of photoshop.
this is what i was thinking about yesterday…
…when I wrote about the inspiration that members of the creative community might find in these Landsat images. The natural world has long been a font of inspiration; it would make sense that new ways of looking at the natural world (to wit: Landsat imagery) would be highly germane to someone's creative work.
a couple points: 1) a totally valid argument exists that these images stand very nicely on their own, unadulterated, as sufficiently beautiful just as they are; 2) posting these pics is not an exercise in delusion regarding any mad ninja skills in photoshop on my part. i have an extremely tiny bag of tricks in image processing and editing. but my broader point from yesterday stands: i can not be alone in finding meaning in and inspiration from these images on a level beyond the technical data they provide, critical though those are. and i really believe that a very humble little bit of outreach to the arts community by the usgs on this stuff would go a long way. (note: original landsat image of sawtooth and millard fires via usgs accompanied by photoshop edited versions 1 and 2)
a serving suggestion to the usgs: artists will dig your stuff too
One of the bits of science news that caught my attention — and I had good company, the national media ran the story as well — was the recent announcement by the Census for Marine Life regarding the abundance and variety of life that thrives in very deep (as in up to 3 miles deep) water, where pressures are enormous and sunlight is unknown.
I saw something incredibly cool on the COML website that was beyond the scope of my short article, but it stuck with me: COML identifies and partners with artists in recognition of the creative community as an interested stakeholder in the outcome of the information produced by this vast cataloging of marine life. For sure, scientists, educators, fisheries managers, and the like are obvious choices for constituents of these data, but the expressed mention of artists was fascinating and wonderful. When later that day I came across a US Geological Survey press release regarding the public availability of a huge cache of Landsat imagery, once I saw the actual images and read who they (the USGS) identify as target audiences, I made an immediate connection. These images are deeply beautiful; and the USGS left artists off their list. I dropped them a brief note suggesting that they broaden their view, just a bit, and included links to COML to illustrate the point. The means, methods, and makings of the scientist and those of the artist differ wildly. But the artist and the scientist certainly share in common a drive to observe, interpret, and explain the mysteries and workings of the world.
