The dark architectural equivalent of ‘Faces of Meth,’ these compiled Google Street View images of Detroit from 2009 through 2013 paint a poignant portrait of decay in the city. Entitled ‘GooBing Detroit,‘ a tumblr blog uses Google Street View Time Machine to follow the fast transformation of houses from cute and cheerful suburban residences to overgrown vacant lots.

Much has been said about the decline of a once-great city, and the seemingly diminishing chances of a comeback. The city’s 78,000+ ‘feral houses‘ are the stuff of legend, seeming to revert back to a wild state the way domesticated animals tend to do when left to their own devices.

The Street View images are often astonishing in the rapid transition in a span of just a few short years. A stretch of houses may have cars parked in the driveways, toys on the lawn and other signs of life all around in the first image, while by the third or fourth they’re barely discernible among the overgrowth.

While these images really drive home how much Detroit has lost over the last three decades, many residents aren’t ready to give up hope, despite the fact that the city’s population has declined from a peak of 1.8 million to just 700,000. There are indeed areas of the city that still thrive, but the question of an overall plan (either to break the city into manageable pieces or reinvigorate it as a whole) remains an open one.

As Google’s Street View vans cruise around the world, they don’t just capture static images of roads, buildings and fields. They take candid snapshots of humanity – images that can be funny, disturbing, strange and haunting. They have frozen moments of grief and despair, of car accidents and burning houses, but also couples embracing and children laughing. A project called The Nine Eyes of Google Street View by Jon Rafman brings these images together into a poignant collection.

The title of the project refers to the nine camera lenses mounted to the roof of the Google Street View van as it travels. These images are stitched together digitally to create panoramic views, blurring out faces and license plates. Rafman combs through Google Street View images to find the most interesting shots.

The project began in 2009, and Rafman continues to add more images to his Tumblr, 9-eyes.com. Some recent additions include children holding toy guns, a baby crawling alone on a sidewalk outside a Gucci store, horses running alongside a scenic cemetery and a busted fire hydrant spraying water into the lens.

Says Rafman in an essay about the project, “Within the panoramas, I can locate images of gritty urban life reminiscent of hard-boiled American street photography. Or, if I prefer, I can find images of rural Americana that recall photography commissioned by the Farm Securities Administration during the depression. I can seek out postcard-perfect shots that capture what Cartier-Bresson titled “the decisive moment,” as if I were a photojournalist responding instantaneously to an emerging event. At other times, I have been mesmerized by the sense of nostalgia, yearning, and loss in these images—qualities that evoke old family snapshots.”

Google’s Street View has made it easier for us to find our destinations, but has it influenced us in other ways as well? When Google sent out a fleet of automobiles armed with GPS units, laser rangefinders, and multi-eyed cameras, their goal was to make it easier to navigate places around the world. But the cameras caught much more than street signs, storefronts and city scenes. They recorded a never-before-seen side of humanity, urbanity and photography itself.

Though these images were all captured by Google’s Street View cameras, they were compiled by artist Jon Rafman. By combing through various blogs dedicated to Street View images, and by exploring the street view function on his own, Rafman was able to identify images that stood out from the rest. He collected those that interested him into an online portfolio of the amazing, the mundane, and the surprisingly intimate.

Rafman published a small book of his findings, and his essay about the project is touching. He describes how it was the unemotional, amateur aesthetic of the images that first attracted him to Street View photos. But as he dove in further, he began to see the unintentional documentary portrayed by these candid, neutral depictions of our world. The cameras make no judgments and display no prejudices. They simply capture the world, semi-autonomously, documenting a brief moment in time again and again and again.

Since May of 2007, Google’s vehicles have been roaming the streets of the world. The nine-lens cameras atop the vehicles shoot photos every ten to twenty meters. Later, the images are stitched together to create 360-degree views of everywhere the vehicles have gone. The drivers of the vehicles don’t strive to catch interesting scenes; nor do they avoid unusual sights when they come across them. The project’s goal is simply to make public information available to the public.

But inevitably, when the vehicles capture pictures of streets and neighborhoods, they see other things as well. They see the people occupying those streets. They see crimes or celebrations in progress, the aftermath of accidents, humorous situations, and couples passionately embracing. The people who are enraged at the presence of the cameras, the people who are clueless, and the people who play to the presence of their impromptu paparazzi. The presence of remarkable humans, the poignant lack of humans. These roving cameras are the voyeurs of the new millennium, yet they make no comment on any sight. The product of their worldly travels is a new class of photography: the utterly detached, emotionless, right-place-at-the-right-time scavenger hunt that is Google Street View.

Looking through pages and pages of photographs from Street View, Jon Rafman found a kind of rhythm in the images. Their slightly distorted proportions (thanks to the panoramic aspect), the faces and license plates blurred out (along with the occasional missing head or distorted body), and their ever-present navigational arrow and Google copyright all contribute to the unique style.

Rather than detracting from the experience, Rafman says that the frankness about how the images were made only enhances the experience. These images clearly are not meant to be art, yet we as humans feel the drive to assign an emotional value to them. Regardless of the method of recording, when we see another human being we have an emotional reaction to it. And that is the often-overlooked beauty of Google Street View images. They are a representation of what we have become. We live in a world that is automated and detached, we are so overloaded with information that we often overlook experiences, yet we still seek meaning in even the smallest things: a gesture, a look, a photograph of a stranger.

But this overarching meaning certainly isn’t Google’s intention. Their project consists of supplying neutral information about locations, not making any type of commentary on the human condition. However, Rafman points out that by removing these selected images from their original context and framing them in a more human-affected light, the artist returns the humanity to them. He bears witness to the frozen moments originally captured with no emotion and no affection, and he holds them out for everyone else to do the same. These tiny moments are a shared scrapbook, a global family photo album of unintentional tenderness.

It doesn’t take much to fool the human mind into thinking it’s seeing something other than reality.  To the casual observer, the subjects of these photographs look like incredibly detailed miniatures.  But if you look closer, you’ll see that this isn’t play time – these are real-life scenes made to look like tiny models through the magic of tilt-shift photography.

Ronaldo Fonseca

(images via: Ronyjux)

The term “tilt-shift photography” refers to the method of tilting the camera lens to distort the plane of focus and shifting the lens to distort the perspective.  Today, most photographers simply take a digital photograph and apply the tilt-shift distortions via software.  Ronaldo Fonseca uses the traditional method to create tilt-shift images with no digital manipulation.

Marcus Spedding

(images via: Kasei)

Aerial views of cities are well-suited to tilt-shift photography.  The blurring at the edges of the photograph simulates the effect of a macro lens on a much smaller field.  These photos from Japan depict what looks like a perfectly miniaturized city, complete with tiny people and beautifully detailed trees.

Kris Kros Photography

(images via: Kris Kros)

One of the most difficult aspects of tilt-shift photography is finding the right conditions.  The lighting has to be bright and full in order to turn out a convincing finished photo because those are the lighting conditions one would expect to find with a photograph of a true miniature.  These pictures from Kris Kros Photography take advantage of excellent lighting conditions to make delightful images of “tiny” scenes.

Modest and Jill

(images via: Modest and Jill)

The subject matter is just as important as the angle and lighting in tilt-shift photography.  If a subject is too complicated or detailed, it isn’t believable as a model.  But if it’s too plain, it is difficult to notice the changed perspective.  Husband and wife duo Modest and Jill have compiled a small but high-quality collection of tilt-shift photographs from cities all over North and South America.  Their subjects are visually exciting, but not so complicated that the illusion is ruined.

David Legnon

(images via: donniedark0)

These tilt-shift photographs of a Boston neighborhood show another way to be creative with this optical illusion.  David Legnon‘s hand putting the “finishing touch” into the scene reinforces the illusion that the photograph of the city is, in fact, a photograph of a tiny model Boston.

Olivo Barbieri

(images via: Metropolis)

Olivo Barbieri’s venture into tilt-shift photography arose from a desire to put some magic into his photography.  By photographing scenes from a helicopter with a tilt-shift lens, he has been able to capture phenomenal pictures from around the world.

Keith Loutit

Using a combination of tilt-shift and time-lapse photography, Australian photographer Keith Loutit creates enchanting Lilliputian worlds where itty-bitty people enjoy their leisure time. His goal is to get people to take a second look at their surroundings and notice things that they may not ordinarily pay attention to.

As the world moves away from the Industrial Age and deeper into the Information Age, the relics of our former industries can been seen aging and abandoned.  Often, older industrial buildings and sites are so polluted with the materials once used or made there that the locations can’t be used for much else.  Since they can’t be used, they simply sit and gather the layers of time that make them fascinating until they are demolished, repurposed, or completely forgotten about.  These abandoned factories, mills and mines have served their useful lives and now stand silent.

Port Mulgrave Mine, United Kingdom

(images via: Phill D.)

In the late 19th century, Port Mulgrave mine supplied iron ore for a brief time.  The mine’s existence was responsible for the construction of the nearby harbor, which helped transport the ore until the nearby railroad was eventually linked up with the rest of the country.  Today, the Port Mulgrave mine is partially collapsed and none too safe to venture into – but this brave photographer took some incredible pictures out of the deserted tunnels.

Cascade Pass, Washington

(images via: Darren Jacobson)

Cascade Pass is a popular hiking destination in Washington state, and some truly breathtaking views await hikers.  There are some surprises, too, like this abandoned mine nestled in the rocks.

Delco Manufacturing Plant, Rochester, New York

(images via: Industrial New York)

Rochester was once a booming industrial city.  But when the area’s industry began to wane, there were plenty of old factories left hanging around.  The Delco Manufacturing Plant changed hands a few times after its heyday, but still ended up abandoned in the end.  Today, one of the three buildings has burned down and the other two are frequently used for illegal activity.

Millenium Mills, London

(images via: Dereliction)

The last of the remaining major flour mills in London, Spiller’s Millenium Mills is look back into the history of the city.  The building and the land on which it is situated have been the setting for countless movies and television shows.  Developers have been in talks to turn the area into part of a 5,000-home waterfront development project.

Carondelet Coke Plant, St. Louis, Missouri

(images via: Ecology of Absence)

This coke plant in St. Louis wasn’t the type that provides syrupy caffeinated goodness to keep you going through your workday.  The coke produced here was a type of fuel derived from coal.  When the EPA named coke plants among the most carcinogenic types of industries, the plant was closed and abandoned.  A case of unpaid taxes caused the property to revert to the city’s ownership in 1987.  It was only 19 years later that a buyer was found for the 40-acre contaminated property.

Abandoned Paper Mill, Location Unknown

(images via: Maraid)

The most mysterious abandoned places are those that seem to have been abandoned in a hurry.  This paper mill, apparently located somewhere in Britain, was deserted with belongings in lockers and dishes still on the canteen table.  Was it a chemical spill that caused the workers to flee?  Or did the owners simply not care to remove the company’s posessions from the building when they closed up shop for good?

Abandoned Jute Mill, Angus, UK

(images via: 8333696)

This jute mill in Angus was similarly ditched seemingly in mid-shift.  Rolls of jute lay all around and machines remain parked as if their operators just popped out for a cup of tea.  Boots and jackets still adorn the interior.  The only signs that this isn’t a working factory are the mildew, dirt build-up and general decay adorning some parts of the site.