Metaphotos of landmarks made from hundreds of superimposed tourist snaps

Swiss artist Corinne Vionnet plunders online image searches for hundreds of similar tourist shots of the same landmarks, then layers them on top of one another to create metaportraits of well-known buildings.

Hundreds of Tourist Photos Weaved into One (18 total) (via Neatorama)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Dr jayus

I agree Maddy, this ‘steampunk’ stuff leaves me cold.
Anonymous

sort of like a folksy version of photosynth. (photosynth takes a bunch of photos and puts them together into 3d scenes – there’s a TED talk of the prototype of it.)
eleventhvolume

This is pretty much a visual cliche along the lines of tilt-shift and HDR. I wonder what’ll be the next one… There’s an American artist some time ago who averaged out all the covers of Playboy and the British artist who merged all of the Bechers’ industrial photography – used on the covers of English indie band The Editors: http://www.editorsus.com/.
cleek

here are some from a guy named Jason Salavon:
http://salavon.com/work.php?sort=ama

i tried my hand at doing some, a while back. the results were .. meh.. but it was fun.
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/?p=2675
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/?p=2676
sixta

Does anyone know how to create this (averaging pixel) effect?
Dr jayus

Great stuff.

I never understand why Stonehenge is included in these things. I popped in there in passing the other week (for the first time – despite it only being a couple of hours away) and was terribly disappointed. It’s tiny! I felt like I was at a Spinal Tap tribute installation.
crankyphotographer

Nice body of work. Did something similar a couple of years ago out at Monument Valley, using CreativeCommons-licensed works: http://www.flickr.com/photos/notchcode/209558752/

Neat to see it done with some of the other great wonders of the world!
princessalex

Those are very impressive! The technique makes the pictures look like sketches turned into watercolor paintings. I really love them!
lauriok

Finnish artist Eeva Karhu does similar scenes, only taking all the photos themselves – to an evoking effect:

http://www.eevakarhu.com/impr-text.html
jjsaul

I love the countless ghostly afterimages of so many people passing through the shots… it feels like the weight of history.

The haunting one of the WTC brings to mind the fact that we have crossed a temporal threshold some time since the dawn of photography, and fewer moments are lost to time… imagine revisiting this project in a hundred years, with the density of millions of overlapping images and the ability to zoom/scroll time periods (or other metrics). Or even longer time periods, showing erosion and urban decay.
urbanhick

Man, these are stunning. Not just as beautiful works of art, but also as interesting cultural references. I love how the technique seems to turn everything into a painting by JWM Turner – that shifting-light, dreamy, ethereal, netherworld-y kinda look. It’s almost like the visual equivalent of passages from some of Mervyn Peake’s work.
sam1148

It looks Aragorn has summoned the army of the undead.
netsharc

Warning, abuse of the term “meta” detected…

Then again, this blog also abuses the term “zen” (looking at you, Xeni).
- IWood
  
  Metazen comment you’ve got there.
PlaneShaper

Looking at these photos, I can’t help but think that this is what Quantum Mechanics would look like if it operated on a slightly more macro scale.

Superposition of de Broglie waves, ftw!
- jjsaul
  
  So in that metaphorical frame of quantum effects, would sex be “making the Bose-Einstein with two backs?”
Antinous / Moderator

Beijing is finally embracing transparency.
EH

I’ve long thought about doing this, but more precisely by placing the shots in 3D space at the angle and distance they were taken. Then you could have a slider that moved forwards and backwards in 3D time!.
- Anonymous
  
  @EH check out Microsoft’s Photosynth project:
  
  http://www.ted.com/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
Maddy

This is Boing Boing at its best. Now, if we can cut out the steampunk stuff, life will be perfect …
Godfree

Gorgeous. It looks like there are three good “picture spots” for Mecca.
axlrosen

Reminds me of this: averaging every Garfield strip from 2007.

http://www.mezzacotta.net/garfield/?comic=9

It’s fascinating what you can pick out.