By combining hundreds or thousands of individual photographs, French photographer Jean-François Rauzier creates seemingly endless fantasy worlds that are 10,000 times the resolution of a normal photograph.
An inspiration for what he calls a “hyperphoto” came from Rauzier’s pity that movie-makers could have people’s attention for hours, while pictures would take only few moments to be viewed. That’s why in 2002 he invented a “hyperphoto” concept and started creating enormous scenes that immerse the spectator into a dreamlike, sometimes fantastic universe. He would spend hours photographing a single object, so that later he could juxtapose, stretch and blend thousands of shots into a single highly detailed image.
Judith B. Herman of Slate writes that the Paris-based photographer started out shooting fashion in the 1970s. When the digital age rolled around, he realized that he could finally execute the grand ideas that had been brewing in his mind.
Gigapixel photographs are generally created by snapping a large number of photos of a scene using a special robotic camera rig, and then stitching those images together afterwards using a special software. Jean-François Rauzier creates similarly massive images, except his “hyperphotos” are all stitched together by hand.
His photographs are so large, that you can keep zooming until you end up stalking somebody through a window or reading book titles in a library. How big are his images? When they’re printed, they’re as wide as two school buses. Even printed out on a 66-feet-wide surface, the pictures would stay sharp and crisp.
Here’s how they’re made: Rauzier first spends an hour or two photographing a particular scene from every angle and capturing every small detail. That’s the easy part. He then hunkers down in his digital darkroom, and that’s where the real magic happens. He spends day after day and night after night compositing the photographs together, using bits and pieces from them to serve as pieces for his resulting scene.
Each of his final works comprise hundreds or thousands of individual photographs blended seamlessly into a beautiful surreal locations that can’t actually be found anywhere here on Earth.
The small photos we shared in this post might be neat to look at, but they don’t do Rauzier’s photos justice. To truly appreciate the depth and scale of the images, you’ll need to visit his website to view them through the interactive browser, which allows you to zoom into the smallest of details in each photo. Website: rauzier-hyperphoto.com
credits: Jean Francois Rauzier, petapixel.com, demilked.com
