Benjamin Grant - Overview: A New Perspective of Earth

Text copyright 2016 by Benjamin Grant

Images copyright 2016 by DigitalGlobe, Inc.

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Amphoto Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

www.amphotobooks.com

AMPHOTO BOOKS and the Amphoto Books logo are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Preface Publishing, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK, London.

Earthrise image on copyright NASA

Names: Grant, Benjamin, author, photographer. | Digital Globe Incorporated.

Title: Overview / by Benjamin Grant.

Description: Berkeley : Ten Speed Press, [2016] | Collection of satellite images of Earth provided by DigitalGlobe annotated and reformated by Benjamin Grant. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016020107 (print) | LCCN 2016024090 (ebook) |

Subjects: LCSH: Remote-sensing images. | Earth (PlanetPictorial works. | Photography in geography. | NatureEffect of human beings onPictorial works. | Human geographyPictorial works. | Global environmental changePictorial works.

Classification: LCC TR810 .G675 2016 (print) | LCC TR810 (ebook) | DDC 778.3/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016020107

Hardcover ISBN:9780399578656

Ebook ISBN9780399578663

eBook design adapted from printed book design by Tim Barnes, herechickychicky.com

MISCHIEF REEF, SOUTH CHINA SEA

9.923278, 115.538358

Active dredgers surround Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands. The vessels pump sediment from the ocean floor up into floating pipes (visible on the surface of the water) and deposit the material onto the reef to increase usable land area.

v4.1

a

To my parents

For teaching me the importance of keeping things in perspective

CONTENTS

WHERE WE

EARTHRISE

Photograph by Bill Anders
December 24, 1968
Courtesy of NASA

A NEW PERSPECTIVE OF EARTH

It is Christmas Eve, 1968. The Apollo 8 spacecraft is sweeping around the dark side of the Moon to begin its journey home. As Earth climbs above the Moons horizon, astronaut Bill Anders points his customized Hasselblad 500 EL camera out the window and takes one of the most important photographs of all timeearthrise .

Its ironic, Anders remarked later. We came to discover the Moon and we actually discovered Earth.

Until now, slightly more than 550 humans have made the journey into space where they could gaze down in wonder at our small blue planet, floating in the infinite vastness of the cosmos. The experience has given them a new perspective, allowing them to appreciate the true extent to which everything on Earth is connected and interdependent. The anecdotes and descriptions provided by these astronauts led science writer Frank White to coin a term for this profound psychological shift. He called it the Overview Effect.

Cameras, either in the hands of our astronauts or attached to satellites suspended in orbit, show us that which we cannot see from Earths surface. Recent advances in technology have yielded extraordinarily detailed images of the entire Earth, and this book contains a purposeful selection and composition of such views. By engaging with these far-flung perspectives, we can not only share in the sensation described by astronauts such as Bill Anders, but also discover a new way to appreciate and evaluate the condition of our planet.

THE FIRST OVERVIEW

34.236687, 102.419596

Earth, Texas, USA
December 14, 2013

INTRODUCTION

This all began with an accident. I was preparing for a meeting of a space club that I started and since the upcoming talk was focused on satellites and how they affect our daily lives, I was playing around on a mapping program. I typed Earth into the search bar to see if it would zoom out to show the entire planet. When I pressed enter, to my surprise, it did the opposite of what I hoped for, and zoomed in.

The map had indeed settled on EarthEarth, Texas. I was astounded by what I saw. My screen had filled with a stunning patchwork of green and brown circles. I saved the image ( ) and showed it to my friends; they, too, were amazed. It turns out my entire screen contained pivot irrigation fields, created by sprinklers that water crops in a circular pattern.