The enormity and beauty of one of my favorite places in the world, the Mont Blanc Massif, can be difficult to accurately describe in either words or images. Nothing seems to do it justice. Until now. Via the largest panoramic photograph in the world, you too can experience what it feels like to stand before the white giant, all without ever hopping on a plane to Geneva.
A team of 5, including Italian photographers Filippo Blengini and Alessandra Bacchilega, spent two weeks at 3500 meters in temperatures hovering around -10 degrees C to capture over 70,000 photos in every direction. Yes, 70,000 photos that went into creating the 365 gigapixel panoramic photo. Post-processing and stitching the 46 terabytes of data afterwards took two months, and the resulting image would be as large as a football pitch if printed out at 300 dpi. Supposedly the Mont Blanc photo is 45 gigapixels larger than the previous world record holder–a panoramic of London shot back in 2013 from the BT Tower.
Click the “Come And See” button on the bottom left and the photo highlights certain objects of interest, including the new cable car construction, climbers all over the range, skiers, and huts. You could spend hours panning and zooming around the panoramic photo to discover fun stuff. Supposedly you should be on the lookout for 20 tourists, 20 mountaineers, 8 workers, and a lone eagle. In the future, the In2White team plan to add names of mountains, climbing routes (awesome!), and even create two more Mont Blanc panoramic photos from different viewpoints.
Let me know what you find!