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theatlantic:

The Mesmerizing Beauty of Nature’s Fractals

Google Earth: source of information, source of wonder, source of art. In 2010, Paul Bourke, a research associate professor at the University of Western Australia, began using the service to capture images for his ongoing Google Earth Fractals series. Since then, he’s amassed an amazing collection of space-based photographs that are equal parts science and beauty: Each intoxicating image on the project’s website is accompanied by a KMZ file that lets users pinpoint the photos’ locations on their own Google Earth viewers, putting them in geographic as well as aesthetic context.

See more. [Images: Google Earth]

hypna:

Dutch Landscapes

When Google introduced its free satellite imagery service to the world in 2005, views of our planet only previously accessible to astronauts and surveyors were suddenly available to anyone with an internet connection. Yet the vistas revealed by this technology were not universally embraced…

The Dutch method of censorship is notable for its stylistic intervention compared to other countries; imposing bold, multi-coloured polygons over sites rather than the subtler and more standard techniques employed in other countries. The result is a landscape occasionally punctuated by sharp aesthetic contrasts between secret sites and the rural and urban environments surrounding them.