Gigapan is an impressive inauguration interactive photo panorama doing the email rounds. It has been around for a while.
This is the email doing the rounds.
Subject: Big brother is watching you, check this out!
This is a photo from the 2009 Inauguration, In which you can see IN FOCUS The face of each individual in the crowd !!!
You can scan, double click and zoom to any section of the crowd… wait a few seconds… and the focus adjusts.
The picture was taken with a robotic camera at 1,474 megapixel. (295 times the standard 5 megapixel camera)
Makes you wonder who’s watching us right now !
Gigapan is an impressive piece of technology. But at no stage did I wonder “who was watching me” – this sort of sensationalism annoys me. I would expect people to be taking photos at major public events.
Plus, the ability to capture the faces of everyone in the crowd is great for security. According to “Lie to Me” police could get in one of those facial specialists to look for angry people and identify shooters in a flash – imagine if this had been around the grassy noll.
Comments
Another case of focusing attention on selective information in order to create or heighten anxiety or pleasure in the audience, firing the chemistry our brains like, and linking it to a desired action or thought response.
These same techniques seem to be welcomed by the media industry, and I’ll include news, advertising and PR in that. Nathan, as an industry insider, when it comes to presenting a message, how clear are the boundaries between persuasion, influence and manipulation?
PR embraces all three.
And therefore the end justifies the means?
Depends what the end is.
It’s a good question that probably deserves more attention than my initial answer – so stay tuned for a post.