Just yesterday, I was sent a link to an amazing photograph of President Barack Obama's inaugural address. I've come to find out that the photo has practically gone viral, with over 2 million views in the first 5 days it was posted, so I'm potentially not the first person to share this with you.
I had a rather strong reaction to the image itself, the story if its creation, as well as the interactive element, and the combination inspired me to go out on a declarative limb: This is THE image that depicts everything historical about Barack Obama's election. A grand statement, I know, but read on and I'll attempt to explain.
New York photographer David Bergman blogged about covering Barack Obama's inauguration on January 20th, 2009. "I covered my first inauguration and what an inauguration it was," he writes. "Before Tuesday, I had photographed five presidents and covered big events including the Olympics, the Super Bowl, and concerts like Live 8 and Live Earth. But this one was the biggest. It deserved a big photo."
When he says big, he means big.
Using a Gigapan Imager that took over 200 hi-res images, Bergman stitched these images together and uploaded the resulting panoramic view to his blog. The file's specs are staggering.
"It took more than six and a half hours for the Gigapan software to put together all of the images on my Macbook Pro and the completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes," said Bergman. The file is 59,783 X 24,658 pixels or 1,474 megapixels. At this resolution, he is selling prints up to eight feet long and four feet tall.
The complete image can be viewed here. Use the zoom and pan tools in the upper left hand corner to zoom in on any portion of the photograph for more detail. Double click to zoom, double click again to zoom more.
So why is this THE photograph?
From a purely aesthetic perspective, this image is breathtaking in scope. Hundreds of thousands of bundled bystanders create a patchwork of colors and textures, all lifting their eyes to the podium in rapt attention. It took 220 separate photographs to capture this singular moment: Now that's poetic. The metaphors abound in the meaning we can make of this fact alone.
When you see the image in full, the first thing you notice is not the man standing at the podium. You notice the HUGE crowd of spectators, the soaring spire of the capital building. A government of the people, by the people, for the people. On the campaign trail, Barack Obama often said that this election was not about him , it was about "us". What a beautiful and accurate portrait of the spirit of this inauguration -- This is what can happen when millions of people join with unity of purpose. And in this portrait, the thousands of change-makers are captured along side the representative they have chosen to carry their banner. (I mean, come on. Someone needs to burst into patriotic song here or something.)
The interactivity element is what really sells this as THE Obama image. There are few events in the history of a generation that warrant us to ask one another "Where were you when...?" January 20th, 2009 will be one of those days. Through this image, you can bear witness to hundreds of "Where were you when Barack Obama was inaugurated?" stories. By using the zoom feature, you can see so many different emotions in the crowd. Applause, laughter, prayer, love, hope -- You can even see Yo Yo Ma taking a picture of Obama at the podium with his iPhone:
Yo Yo Ma is rendered profoundly human by the power of zoom!
Barack Obama has, in my opinion, achieved a remarkable level of accessibility and engagement with voters and constituents by using the internet, through portals like barackobama.com, change.gov, and now through whitehouse.gov, all while displaying an unprecedented level of attention to graphic design, branding, and a uniformity of image. Is there a soul left out there who wouldn't recognize this logo?
By using interactive Web 2.0 tools, Barack Obama's campaign changed the way politicians organize, advertise, and communicate. Real-time internet contact (and Obama's awesome battle to save his BlackBerry) will change the face of the presidency.
"Just like Kennedy brought in the television presidency, I think we're about to see the first wired, connected, networked presidency," Joe Trippi said to the New York Times.
In that vein of interactivity and engagement, Bergman's photograph is much more in line with capturing Obamania in the context of the moment we live in -- This isn't your grandmother's newspaper headline. Sure, I saved the the cover of the New York Times declaring 'OBAMA' on November 5th, but this interactive photograph is something different than a framed 5x7 image. This image captures the enormity and excitement of this moment in a much more poignant and satisfying way. It reacts to me and I react to it. I see something new each time I explore the image in close-up.
It's an image that's about all of us, and it is shared with us in a way that we can feel participatory in the experience, regardless of whether we were among those huddled masses on the Mall or sitting in a New York office on Inauguration Day.
