Those who have traveled to the California Redwoods know how difficult it is to document the awe-striking majesty of the trees. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to get the nature of the epic trees onto film. But National Geographic was committed to trying to do so anyway, sending photographer Michael Nichols and a whole crew to the Redwoods for an entire year to capture the areas famous trees.
The end result required three cameras, a team of scientists, a robotic dolly, and a gyroscope, finally producing an 83-photo composite. Impressive to say the least.
Video about making the photo after the jump.
[Via: NPR]
This is pretty much a copy of the work James Balog has done in the past. See http://www.jamesbalog.com/portfolio/index.html and click the “Tree” section of the portfolio (you’ll have to mouse over the icons to see the description).
GKS wrote that the redwood photo in the October 2009 Nat Geo is pretty much a copy of work by James Balog.
Seems that each is it’s own work. Balog’s photos of the redwoods are basically photo stitch, which is pretty much photography done by many others before him. Took a moment to realize which tree Balog took the Del Norte Titan image from.
The photo by Nichols is more clean and crisp, since its a more tightly fit merging of images. I like both Nichols and Balog versions. Someday, I’d like to redesign my office in another room at home, and hang prints of both.
MDV
Oregon