Google Maps is great for a many reasons that extend far beyond helping you get from point “A” to point “B” — and their newest feature is especially interesting. Dubbed “photo tours,” the new Google Maps feature allows users to take 3D tours of 15,000 different, well-known landmarks; all of which are highlighted when you follow a special link from Google.

In order to create the experience you see demoed in the above video, Google goes through a complicated process of compiling sourced photos from Picasa and Panoramio, finding overlapping photos, generating a 3D rendering based on those photos and then choosing a path through the landmark. We’re sure it’s even more complicated than it sounds, but the results speak for themselves.

(via Google LatLong Blog via The Verge)

“The Collective Snapshot” is a series by Spanish photographer Pep Ventosa (previously featured here) that consists of abstract images of famous landmarks created by blending together dozens of ordinary snapshots. His goal is to “create an abstraction of the places we’ve been an the things we’ve seen”, and to create images that are both familiar and foreign at the same time.
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While on vacation in Ireland five years ago and browsing a street fair, photographer Tom Storm captured a few shots of bubbles floating past. After reviewing the photos and discovering that a whole world was captured in the bubbles, he began to intentionally photograph bubbles while visiting landmarks around the world.
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