Overview started 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 Earth – Earth, 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 (seen here on the screen) 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.
That image of Earth, Texas set me off on this adventure to capture the places where humans have impacted the landscape of the planet. I started the blog Daily Overview where one of these images has been shared every day since 2013. On Instagram alone, the account has more than one million followers.
Since I founded the project, images that I created have been featured in numerous exhibitions, publications, and museums around the world. And I continue to create imagery each day for licensing purposes or for collaborations with other brands and organizations to help tell their stories.
Above all, I love sharing the lessons learned from this adventure, of how Overview came to be, and how it might inspire a better future for our one and only home.
