Gary Lobdell, Photographer

Panoramic photography has long captivated my imagination for both its ability to present a subject in an expanded context as well as its tendency toward the unusual perspective.

Panoramas are photographed by rotating the camera on a tripod to capture the width of the scene. Traditionally photographers have used motorized equipment to capture the subject in a single strip of film. My panoramas, however, are composed of a series of exposures captured with a 35mm digital camera that are later blended together in my studio. A narrow landscape may be comprised of 5 photographs while 20 or more will be combined for a 360 degree view.

Once the photographs have been taken, completing a panorama may require anywhere from 2 to 20 hours depending upon complexity. The greater the number of component exposures the longer the process takes. The steps include importing the photography, triangulating image relationships, remapping the component images and blending them into a composite panoramic photograph. Photo editing software is used to make final adjustments and printing is accomplished by a giclee. Each resulting photograph is then matted and framed in my Studio.

While taking photographs has long been an interest of mine, it has not been my career. My profession of 30 years has been the applications of large format aerial photography for mapping purposes (photogrammetry). One of these applications is the precise blending of aerial photographs to form a contiguous orthographic image. Although the camera platforms and perspectives are different, there is much in common between the aerial and panoramic processing.

I hope you enjoy viewing my panoramas as much as I enjoy creating them.

www.PanoramicExpressions.com