Galleries of adventure and travel photography generally lack one thing: a greater context of where the adventure took place. Horizons seeks to put adventure and travel photography in it's place, locating thumbnails on an interactive world map with scales from 15 metres per pixel up to a full world view. Specific regions of high-density photography, like Georgian Bay and the GTA, receive special Region treatment through specially processed Landsat-7 data direct from NASA. With over 50,000 Blue Marble Next Generation map tiles in the system, you can literally wander the world at any level you choose. The system is still being populated, and only some select photography from Canada, Mexico, France, and Italy are online.
Utilizing the latest in Flash technologies, the Horizons engine will ultimately allow deep-linking directly to any photograph, browser forward and back control, and complete scaleability. Driven by dynamic XML, the system is highly extensible and is being expanded daily. Soon an RSS feed will alert users to new additions. Photography is searchable through a variety of criteria, like country, year, lens, camera, or keyword. Finding photography taken with the venerable Coolpix 4500 or using a Canon 70-200mm lens is a dynamic menu-click away. EXIF data for all photos is available, and photos can include links to other websites if available.
Designed specifically to show adventure and travel photography, Horizons will be launched in July 2007, in time to showcase photography from Sean Tamblyn's upcoming kayak adventure, paddling from his home to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway, taking in Toronto, Kingston, Montreal, and Quebec City along the way. More information on Sean Tamblyn can be found at www.seantamblyn.com.