I was at a talk last night which centered on the work of George
Lawrence, one of the early innovators doing panorama photographs with
cameras lofted by kites, as well as other LARGE prints. Prints shown
were 6' wide on average, printed in sections. The US Library of
Congress include some some of these amazing negatives scanned in high
resolution ... we're talking negatives that are 2x4 FEET in size
here! ...
Anyway, the presenter (peter nurske) put together a package of the
image files that he showed, downloaded from the LOC, and has made
them available for others to enjoy, study and use. Here's what he has
to say about them:
On Sep 14, 2006, at 8:08 AM, peter nurkse wrote:
> Here it is, a Pando package of 322MB of Library of Congress
> panoramas and views. And I added the typhoon off Tokyo, and a few
> other pictures. Plus my own notes. If you want to read me notes,
> you can start with 'panoramas and views.pdf', that's the overview.
> It mentions 'bay area 1906 panoramas.pdf', that's about the 5 local
> panoramas. And there are more notes for each local panorama.
>
> To avoid clogging up your email inbox, the files are all on a Pando
> server somewhere. When you select to download the package from this
> email, you'll automatically install a small Pando software program,
> and then get all the files. You can choose where they go on your
> system, or just accept a default location.
>
> And you can interrupt the transfer any time, and resume it later.
> This Pando program is the best way I've seen to send a set of large
> files (up to 1GB total) to any particular people, and avoid all the
> problems of sending files as email attachments.
>
> The files will be stored on the Pando server for 14 days. So you
> can just forward this email message to anyone else you think would
> like to see them, and they can download them too the same way. The
> download can take a while, depending on your connection, but since
> it only requires 1 click from you to do it, doesn't matter. And you
> can use your computer and the Web while download is running. It
> uses BitTorrent, a special technology to move large files.
>
> Just to emphasize, these files are all public property per the
> Library of Congress, who should know, free of copyright and any
> other restrictions. Library of Congress has this to say about
> copyright: "All works published or registered for copyright before
> Jan. 1, 1923, are now in the public domain". After Jan. 1, 1923,
> copyright is a big can of worms, but before that date it's very
> simple, there is no copyright anymore. So these files are
> appropriate for any use, private or public or commercial. Library
> of Congress just asks they be given credit in any caption ("from
> the Library of Congress", for example).
>
> I hope at some point to be surprized to find these pictures in all
> kinds of places I never expected. Like in a newspaper article, or
> in a display walking down the street, or in a magazine, many
> possiblities. That'll help show they're getting known, they deserve
> that.
>
> Peter
The Pando tool is available at
http://www.pando.com/beta/download
... runs on either Windows or Mac OS. Anyone interested should drop
me a line and I'll send the Pando file he sent around that lets you
download the package. I installed it and it worked very easily and
smoothly, downloaded the whole package in an hour or two, unattended.
WARNING: the package is about 322 Mbytes in size so it takes a while
even with a broadband connection.
The high rez scans are amazingly detailed, fascinating views of San
Francisco, San Jose, Salinas and Santa Cruz a few months after the
1906 earthquake. The camera weighed over 50 lbs and was lofted by a
chain of up to 18 mammoth lifting kites to a height between 800 and
1000 feet... truly fascinating stuff.
Godfrey
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