Artist Statement

Some of the works presented in this exhibit have an extra wide field of view in the horizontal direction and others in the vertical direction.  This increase in the viewing angle gives the piece quite a different perspective as if you were situated far away and didn’t have to turn your head to see everything in sight. When attempting to capture buildings or monuments that are located in tight alleyways or small streets surrounded by other large and tall buildings, many times photographers find that it is nearly impossible to capture the entire object in the full frame of their camera.

One such solution to overcome this is to simply take multiple framed shots and piece them together. This technique in the end produces photographs that have large horizontal and vertical fields of view and would otherwise be impossible to capture even with the widest angle lenses available. The complexity though, requires that the camera be positioned and aligned properly. Many other parameters including framing, zoom, overlap, and exposure are also critical to producing a useable final image.

Contrary to traditional point-and-shoot photography, the process that is performed to achieve these detailed and large format photographs is quite extensive and requires patience, skill and extensive planning to achieve good results.  The new and greatly changing technologies found in digital cameras make this type of photography more of a reality today than the previous film based methods. This is largely due to the arrival of high-resolution sensors producing the required clear and sharp images.  These are essential to the post-processing software algorithms that aid in the combining of multiple images to create one final piece. 

Applying the concept of high dynamic range techniques to the panoramic photos adds another dimension to the final artwork. The human eye compared to a camera sensor and further compared to an LCD display, has a very large dynamic range. Its ability to adjust to varying light levels and continue to see all color and detail is today still superior to what a digital camera sensor can capture. The technique simply requires capturing the still images at multiple exposure levels rather than just one. The multi-exposure images are later merged into one to enhance the color and detail normally not visible with a single exposure.

Since panoramic photographs generally cover a wide area which sees varying degrees of light based on where the lens is pointing, capturing the images using applied HDR techniques makes logical sense. It produces results that would otherwise not be possible with a single still image and mimics what the human eye would see if focused on the individual portions of the very wide field of view.

Therefore it can be seen how this photographic process encompasses both the technical/engineering and artistic disciplines, setting it apart from traditional photography.