About this site

Not so green is the web site for everyone who has ever looked out an airplane window and wondered what they were looking at. We sort through the thousands of aerial photographs posted on photo-sharing sites like Flickr, and create a global map showing the locations of images from around the world. We present this information using tools like Google Maps, which allows you to see photo locations in your browser, and Google Earth, a standalone application that you install and run on your computer. Using Google Earth, we can show you the exact location and perspective of each image in our system.

We bring you images from around the world, but we have a particular focus on Greenland, whose clear air, stark landscapes, and location along many international air routes between North America and Europe make it a popular target for many aerial photographers. We present images from all around this vast arctic island, allowing you to see its beauty through the eyes of hundreds of people who have passed overhead.

Using the site

On our site, we display the photography of Flickr users, as well as screenshots from the Google Earth application. We often present these images side-by-side for comparison. You can click on any Flickr image to view its page on Flickr, where you can see more details about the photo (including larger versions), notes from the photographer, and comments from other users. Clicking on the Google Earth screenshots will display a full-resolution version of the screenshot. If you have the Google Earth application installed on your computer, you can click on the globe icons on any screen to "fly" to that location in Google Earth to see the exact location of each photograph. Google Earth is a free program that you can download and install from the Google Earth website.