Long time, no see.

In this rather famous segment from a 1982 episode of the candid camera show The Live Mike, Gay Byrne is repeatedly prevented from recording a scene in Trinity College Dublin. I liked it, not just because seeing an infuriated Gay Byrne is hilarious, but because of the few glimpses of Parliament Square back then.

I took these last summer, when I was at the execrable Irish Jamboree 2008 (or Shamboree, as it’s known colloquially), and they somewhat cheered me up from the poorly-organized activities and torrential rain.

I accidently messed with the exposure settings on my camera somehow, and after pointing and shooting at the lamps in the car-park, this was the result.

Following on from my recent look at Mike Cammarano’s huge World Trade Center site aerial photograph, I discovered The Gigapxl Project which is, according to its website:

Defining the upper limits of large-format film photography, digital scanning and image processing, custom-built Gigapxl™ cameras capture images with unprecedented resolution.

It would take a video wall of 10,000 television screens or 600 prints from a professional digital SLR camera to capture as much information as that contained in a single Gigapxl™ exposure.

The Project’s near-term goal is to compile a coast-to-coast Portrait of America; photographing in exquisite detail the cities, parks and monuments of the USA and Canada.

A longer term goal is to create for future generations a world-wide archive of vanishing cultural and archaeological sites.

The image gallery contains some of the most mind-boggling detailed photographs I have ever seen. Take this example, a wide shot of New York’s Times Square.

We come from this:

to this:

to this:

Unnecessarily detailed photography seems to be turning into a bit of an obsession for me…

I’m a bit late with these, especially since they were taken right after my week in San Francisco. Nonetheless, here are some of the 633 photos I took this summer in the boroughs of New York City.

HOME is an environmental documentary directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. It’s 93 minutes of aerial views of the earth, and whether you’re an eco-freak or not, they’re pretty impressive. It’s an entirely non-profit venture, and was released on the fifth of June all over the world, in theatres, on DVD and online.

A great way to avoid studying, I’m sure you’ll agree. But enough ranting: you can watch it here on YouTube.