daniel boschung shoots 900 megapixel portraits for face cartography

 
daniel boschung shoots 900 megapixels portraits for face cartography
all images courtesy of daniel boschung
 

zurich-based photographer daniel boschung reveals the incredibly detailed intricacies of the human face in his series of ‘face cartography’ images. the mega portraits are comprised with an ABB industrial robot driven by a control software, which has been written elusively for this task. each picture consists of about 600 single shots with a size of 900 million pixels, composing a hyper realistic, dramatic result. the standardized portraits have a surprising, abstract impact when zoomed in: beard stubble looks like the trunk of a tree, a wrinkle seemingly a deep canyon and a nostril translates as a cavernous hole. ‘these facial landscapes are dismaying – why?‘, asks boschung ’emotions are completely missing. emotions show up only briefly, while macro photography takes half an hour. the person has to stay motionless while being photographed by the robot’. take a look at the video below to see how boschung creates each high-resolution portrait.

making of face cartography
video courtesy of daniel boschung

‘pia’, zoomed out

closer view

pia’s mouth

‘katharina’

close up of the face

an extreme detail of the nose

 
‘markus’

an eye through a glasses’ lens

individual eyelashes look like tree trunks

‘martin’

hair follicles zoomed in 

an even closer look at individual strands of hair

‘karin’

karin’s eyes

a detail of karin’s eyelid