Google Earth, circa 1906

[photography]

Santa Cruz resident Peter Nurkse (with time on his hands after being
laid off from Sun Microsystems) found The Library of Congress offered
for download a high resolution file of a 3-by-6-foot aerial
photograph of San Jose (just post 1906 earthquake) printed from a 4-
foot-wide negative.

He spent hours using Photoshop to brighten the photo, sharpen the
contrast and remove blemishes. Next, he printed it on photo paper
using his five-year-old printer. Lots of photo paper -- 28 sheets in
all, which he carefully pieced together.

The original was taken by a man named George Lawrence, who used a 50-
pound camera that was lifted perhaps 800 feet into the air by kites.

Lawrence came west from Chicago to document the destruction of the
1906 quake. He used his kite gear to capture bird's eye views of San
Francisco, Santa Cruz, Salinas, Pacific Grove and San Jose. In short,
Lawrence created the turn of the last century's Google Earth.

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