Murals of Tibet
The problem
Ancient Buddhist temple murals across remote Tibet were deteriorating faster than they were being recorded.
The approach
Gigapixel capture in situ, returning over years, prioritising resolution high enough to preserve brushwork rather than just document subject matter.
What was built
Eight years of intermittent capture, 2010–2018, across Tibet's most remote regions with art historian Thomas Laird.
The outcome
Published by TASCHEN in 2018 as a SUMO edition — the publisher's largest format, reserved for major photographic monographs.
In 2010, Gavin began an eight-year gigapixel capture project across Tibet’s most remote regions with art historian Thomas Laird, photographing ancient Buddhist temple murals at ultra-high resolution before deterioration and neglect could erase them further — work Panogs’ own materials describe as preserving “a culture whose Sistine Chapels were literally crumbling.”
The result was published in 2018 as a SUMO-edition book by TASCHEN — the publisher’s largest and most prestigious physical format, reserved for major photographic monographs.
Role, precisely: the book’s own credits page names him — “By Thomas Laird with Gavin Farrell” — against a specific list of plates in both the SUMO and the companion volume, and records the division of work: source image capture by Laird and Farrell, first render by Farrell, final image edited by Laird. He is one of several named collaborators; other plates credit other renderers.
That is the whole claim, and it is worth stating exactly. It is Laird’s book, Laird’s authorship, and Laird’s hand on every finished image. What Gavin holds is a printed, named credit for the capture and the first render — which is a stronger and more checkable thing than any adjective.
A minute and a half of the murals themselves — the color and brushwork the gigapixel resolution was built to hold — plays below.
His task was to best preserve the artistry of a culture whose Sistine Chapels were literally crumbling from neglect, through high-resolution gigapixel capture systems.
