Pale blue dot

It’s easy to dismiss Manila as a terrible place. Experiencing the chaos firsthand can be disheartening. Days are whittled down to the deadening brunt of routine, compressing our lives around commute routes and the paralyzing traffic. In our line of sight, there is only the general unpleasantness of the human condition, but seeing this place we live in from a different perspective can have a transformative effect on us.

When Apollo 8 went around the moon in 1968, the mission crew members were the first to witness “Earthrise.” This experience had such a profound impact on astronauts Frank Borman and William Anders (an audio recording of their conversation during this moment is available online) that they were able to capture it into what is now one of the most iconic photographs in history.

“The moon looks like one beat-up, sandblasted ball upclose (...) Once we circularized orbit and ended up going forward for the first time, me, (James) Lovell  and Borman suddenly said at once, “Look at that” — this gorgeous, colorful, beautiful planet of ours coming up over the ugly lunar horizon,” Anders told Forbes.

Astronauts have since experienced the Overview Effect — the sensation of looking down on Earth from space. The ISS crew have even confessed to spending their time on the space station watching the earth transform right in front of them.

“Looking down on Earth and you see that line that separates day to night slowly moving across the planet. Thunderstorms on the horizon cast long shadows as the sunsets. And watching the Earth come alive, you see the lights in the cities and the towns. Shooting stars going below us or or dancing curtains of Aurora. It’s very hard to describe all the colors, the beauty, the motion,” ISS astronaut Ron Garan shares in the short film The Overview Effect.

It’s this particular phenomenon that inspired artist Benjamin Grant to start his satelite photography website “The Daily Overview”, which observes the effect of humans interacting with their environment.

“From the very beginning of the project, I decided that all of the places I would show would be places of human impact: to detail man’s interaction, and presence on the planet,” Grant tells Rogue, which has collaborated with him for a three-cover special depicting “beautiful and troubling” images of the Philippines as seen from space. “I thought this perspective of being able to show so much territory provided a unique way that I don’t think anyone has ever done before; you can show something like an entire city, an entire mining area, or an entire forest. It’s extremely relevant right now in terms of conversations about the climate and how it interacts with human presence. I think that it all came together and started the project.”

For the project, Rogue commissioned Grant to capture photographs of varied landscapes around the country, from the overcrowded streets of Pasig, the stunning view of Banaue Rice terraces, to the contested waters in Mischief Reef.

Seeing these photographs can create a paradox of response. Malolos’ swathes of greenery may be awe-inspiring but the threat of urban sprawl lingers by its borders. The photograph of the Port Area in Manila puts into context how congested the place really is. And that hovering above the Pinatubo crater — “a wide jewel of blue and green” is oddly calming, despite its deathly implications.

Whether it’s the geometric irrigation fields in Kansas, USA, the dotted landscape of citrus trees in Spain, or the busy intersections of EDSA, these photographs provide us a unique opportunity to appreciate this tiny pocket of the universe that we call home. These images are evidence of how we have significantly altered the face of the earth and at the same time, how vastly we are unaware of what else is out there. It makes us curious, sparking an interest to know more and learn how, despite all these years, this place still has the capacity to surprise us. It is only up to us how we can change it for the better.

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Rogue Magazine’s Design Issue featuring “The Daily Overview” is now on newsstands and on zinio.com/rogue. The Rogue app is also now available on the Apple App Store.