Inventor of the Gigapxl camera (the world’s highest resolution camera — that’s 1000 megapixels) and 2005 Pop!Tech presenter, Graham Flint remembers New Orleans before Katrina hit one year ago. These images of New Orleans can be viewed in stunning detail online at the Gigapxl gallery. These are only some of the stunning mind-blowing photos that make up Flint’s “Portrait of America” project.

Flint and his team began the project in 2000 and estimated that it would take 5 years to create an ultra-high resolution portrait of America. In those five years, The Gigapxl project has taken them to 51 states and Canadian provinces where they capture national parks, monuments, and cities. To date, they have amassed more than 1,200 gigapixel photographs documenting the North American landscape, and with the Pre-Katrina photos, its history as well.