Author: Christopher DeCou / Source: Atlas Obscura
Instagram is full of photo trends, but one of the most visually stunning is #tinyplanet. A circular, instead of horizontal, panorama, the tiny planet is an immersive photo that stitches together the entire environment to otherworldly effect.
The ground appears like a small, green planet and buildings, people, plants, animals, and trees all shoot and soar around the little sphere. The technique became a popular way to rethink the panorama of the iPhone, but this spherical landscape was pioneered over 200 years ago and helped spread the idea of immersive pictures.During the 18th century, a new world opened in two ways: One, scientists started to investigate and explore the mountains with a new perspective on studying and capturing the natural world; and two, balloon technology appeared that allowed people to see the world from above, looking down. Scientists pioneered circular landscapes to try to capture these new perspectives. Horace Bénédict de Saussure is perhaps the most famous of these trailblazing designers. He is not as well-remembered as his early 20th-century descendant Ferdinand de Saussure, who wrote about semiotics in linguistics, but the older Swiss aristocrat contributed significantly to the study of geology and meteorology through his detailed descriptions and natural history of the Alps.
Originally from Geneva, de Saussure conducted numerous scientific expeditions among the alpine slopes, documenting his attempts to reach Mont Blanc and the other peaks. Published from 1779 to 1796, his multi-volume text Les Voyages dans les Alpes was an important natural history of the mountains and inspiration to other geologists. His work would lead to the explosion of tourism in the mid-19th century. Although Thomas Manning, one British contemporary, wrote to his friend, the great Georgian essayist Charles Lamb, “the views in Switzerland are far inferior, I think, to those in North England,” the illustrations that accompanied de Saussure’s publications transported the reader into the center of the precipitous mountain glaciers.
In 1776, de Saussure was a member of a team that was among the first to reach the summit of Mont Buet in France. He and his colleagues were primarily interested in collecting meteorological data and specimens of shell fossils, “the most singular petrifications … previously unknown to Naturalists.” Upon reaching the summit, the team was spellbound by the beauty of the surrounding mountains. De Saussure knew he wanted to share such a landscape with his readers, but he struggled with how he might illustrate the immensity and towering nature of the surroundings. “I saw clearly…
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