Panorama.

You may think my posts are a little disjointed. That is because they are. I’ve decided that writing about my personal history of my involvement in photography is boring for me  so it must be absolute hell for you.

 So, I’ve decided to write about whatever crosses my mind during the week that bears even a slight relation to photography.

 This week I decided that I needed to create an image for our dining room at home. I needed a wide but narrow format to fit over the dining room table. A panorama is what I needed! Not a “chocolate box” panorama mind you, maybe something a little grungy……

 There is an old disused train station near my home that has always intrigued me. The old Gillits station is a beautiful old building, built with those wonderful warm orange Natal clay bricks, it must have stood there, a sentinel watching over the single railtrack for at least the last 100 years.

 I figured this scene would make a great night panorama shot. I’ve been there three nights in a row, trying to get the perfect shots to stitch together for this panorama. I had a clear image in my mind of how it should look. I think it’s important to visualize beforehand what you are trying to create. The software I had planned to use is called “Autopano”. This is an amazing program that can stitch together 360 degrees of images into one seamless panorama, technology rocks!

 But, I must confess, it didnt turn out to be as easy as I imagined! Firstly trying to level the tripod is an engineering exercise in itself! Secondly, running around trying to remote flash as many areas as possible in the 30 second exposure is a fitness session in itself. It went a bit like this:-

 Visit one. Flash battery died near the end. Images not quite good enough for stitching.(too dark in areas)

Visit two. Much the same as visit one.

Visit three. Got the perfect shots. Got home proud of results,  memory card promptly ate my images!  Bastard!

 Visit four. On the cards soon.

 My thought of the day is, I had better get this damn thing right next time, before some slimy homosapien notices this idiot wandering around in the dark at a deserted train station with expensive camera equipment, and decides this is a great mugging candidate!

 This is sort of what I’m trying to do but not really good enough yet. This is 4 images that have been manually joined in photoshop. The areas of dark are for drama.