Science & Technology Meet Art & Beauty In An Exhibition Tracing The History of Aerial Photography
Excerpt: The Elevated Eye: Aerial Photography Past and Present examines the history of aerial photography, from its origins in the nineteenth century to the boundary-pushing technologies of the twenty-first century. While the exhibition highlights a number of stunning locations around the world, many of the images focus on Los Angeles and Southern California, revealing how the region has developed over the course of more than a century.
The Elevated Eye traces the parallel developments of flight and photography as well as the intersections of art and technology, illustrating how a simple change in perspective transforms the familiar into the spectacular.
During the second half of the twentieth century, photography was an important part of the Space Race as cameras were used to document the movement beyond the stratosphere. The Elevated Eye includes early NASA images from the Apollo missions of the 1960s and later images from the International Space Station, as well as the work of Erwan Rivault, a French geographer who uses open access data from European Space Agency satellites to create stunning images of natural wonders on the Earth’s surface. A model of the International Space Station from the Columbia Memorial Space Center, a “CubeSat” satellite from Interorbital Systems, and camera-equipped drones will allow visitors to better understand the technology used to help create remarkable aerial images of the past, present, and future.