Direct Link: Golden Mile London Gigapixel Panorama

I’ve just finished working on a new gigapixel panorama called ‘Golden Mile’, which took a couple of evenings of standing around on top of a building. It had been a warm day in London and the heat of the city could still be felt as the sun set – it was great not to be spending hours frozen in high winds for a change!

It’s lovely to get a shot with quite so many of London’s landmarks included, and this has lots – the major ones I’ve listed below, but if you zoom into the gigapixel file then you’ll spot many more.

The major ones then; the River Thames, London Eye (Millennium Wheel), St Paul’s Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the turrets of Lambeth Palace, the Gherkin, Tower 42 (the Natwest Tower), the BT Tower (Telecom Tower), the British Museum, The Sea Life London Aquarium at the old County Hall, Shellmex House, Nelson’s Column, Piccadilly Circus, the new 147m Strata Tower, the nearby Elephant & Castle and Alexandra Palace in the distance in North London.

The image is incredibly high resolution – and will print at photographic quality at over 10 metres without scaling up. In addition, the viewer on the site gives you the ability to explore the image online, zooming in to see the detail. Here are a couple of crops from the image.

I hope you enjoy exploring the skyline. Click the link to view the gigapixel panorama.

Today the 360 virtual tour of the Tardis which I shot for the BBC has gone live. The BBC have used the virtual tour to provide lots of exciting content to Doctor Who fans, including a short film giving users a tour of the Tardis, special messages from characters, Tardis facts, wallpaper downloads and conceptual art. The interactive images allow users to navigate around at leisure, feeling as if they’re inside the Tardis and zooming in on details that interest them. Hopefully this gives Doctor Who fans a really good chance to get up close and personal with the Tardis – something that’s not so achievable with a still image or even watching on screen.

As I mentioned on my last blog post, I’m a child of the 70’s and have been a Doctor Who fan since the days of Tom Baker and his (I thought then) very cool scarf. Getting the opportunity to shoot the Tardis was massively exciting, and I hope that the images give other fans a chance to get closer to the world’s most famous time machine.

Click the link to explore the Tardis virtual tour (link opens in a new window). I hope you enjoy it!

If you’re a regular Radio Times reader, the copy you pick up today will give you an exclusive glimpse inside the all new tardis – Doctor Who’s mode of intergalactic transport.

For non UK readers, I should explain that Doctor Who is a BBC television series which has been running since 1963 – and is probably one of the UK’s most famous and best-loved TV series. It features ‘the Doctor’, a time lord who appears human but who has distinctly alien abilities and a benevolent attitude to go with it. He travels through time and space with a human companion in an old-fashioned police box called ‘the tardis’ – which despite being diminutive outside, opens into a vast space inside.

The new series launches this coming weekend, and features a new Doctor (played by Matt Smith – the eleventh Doctor), his new companion and the all new tardis.

I was lucky enough to be invited to shoot the interior of the new tardis. As a lad who grew up avidly watching Doctor Who (a habit which I’ve not grown out of!), this was one of the most exciting shoots I’ve undertaken.

You can see one of the tardis images on the cover of the Radio Times, which is a gatefold cover – opening out to show the panorama and give a wider view of the inside of the tardis.

I’ve added a new London panorama to the Gigapixel Panoramas Portfolio section. I’ve (slightly inaccurately) titled it Waterloo Sunset, with a nod to the Kinks and Ray Davies, though clearly it’s shot a little after sunset! If I add another – more accurate – Waterloo sunset, then I shall have to rename this one. The cranes on the skyline show just how much building is going on in the capital.

Visit the link to view the Waterloo Sunset gigapixel panorama in a zoomable format. To see it big, make sure you click the fullscreen button, and click into it to zoom in – it’ll take a moment after each click to load up.

The images from Chicago are now available to view in the cityscapes stock library. Please click the link to be taken to the Chicago stock photography library (opens in a new window).

The last few months I have been working on some images I captured in Chicago and I’m now delighted to invite you to the online private view of the Chicago series of images. The collection includes several gigapixel images, which can be reproduced at massive resolution along with a selection of interactive 360 virtual tours around Chicago’s Millennium Park and East Wacker Drive.

You can view the complete collection of Chicago panoramas and 360s here.

There’s also a preview below – many of these shots can be viewed at high resolution at the Chicago photography online private view.

Cityscape shot looking over the Chicago skyline with the John Hancock Center in view.

Read the rest of this entry »

Seemingly using a tripod on the land outside the Tower of London could get you shipped inside the Tower – perhaps via Traitor’s Gate. Out shooting one sunny, busy afternoon, I was approached by a gentleman dressed in a Beefeater costume. He told me that the land outside the Tower of London was private and was I taking professional photos? No I replied – just for my own personal use. He said that the tripod wasn’t allowed and walked away before I could continue the discussion. Reassured, being that I was shooting for pleasure rather than profit, I kept shooting. He approached a second time, this time to tell me that he was in fact a police officer (undercover perhaps?!) and that I couldn’t use a tripod due to the terrorist risk. He scarpered before I could reasonably discuss the fact that I was merely taking shots of the same locations that thousands of others had in that day alone. Wearied of the constant harassment photographers face (three ’stops’ that day alone) I decided to move on anyway.

This paranoia about tripods is worrying. No, it’s not a health and safety issue as I’m with it at all times. No, having a tripod doesn’t make me a terrorist. No, it doesn’t mean that I’m planning to print thousands of copies and sell them off the back of a van in Peckham. This theory that a tripod turns an ordinary camera into a powerful money-making terrorist uber-tool should be treated with the derision it deserves.

Earlier this year, I travelled to Louisville, Kentucky and had the opportunity to spend a little time wandering around the city. Louisville is famed as the home of the Kentucky Derby, but sadly as my visit didn’t coincide with the racing, I was left to find other locations of interest in the city. Being fascinated by architecture, my attention was caught by the massive Humana Building skyscraper. This building was designed by architect and designer Michael Graves, and was named as one of “the 10 best buildings of the decade” in the 1980s by Time Magazine.

The style is postmodern – characterised by the blending of pre-modern features (such as columns and ornamental detailing) with modern materials and techniques. This was a reaction against the stark functionalism of the modernist buildings of earlier years. I think that there’s a definite nod to ancient Egypt in the pink granite columns.

Click the link to view the Humana Building virtual tour

I’ve just added a new image to the high resolution Gigapixel panoramic photography gallery.

This panorama is one I captured in Yosemite, California, and I love the detail in the image. This dramatic mountain road is high above a valley, and after the tunnel drops down into Yosemite. When you zoom right in, you can see the small details in the trees and the cliffs. Click the link to view the Yosemite gigapixel panorama.

Architect’s Journal (the Emap publication for British Architects) is running a feature about my London panoramic photography. The article has gone live on their website today. The feature reads:

Some of Will Pearson’s stunning London panoramas

As well as London, Pearson has documented the city of Shanghai and landscapes across America. His architectural work also extends to virtual tours of cities and interiors.

The article features 11 of my London panoramas, including The Birds, shot at Trafalgar Square. Many thanks to Alex and all at Architect’s Journal for the feature.

You can read the article and view the images here: http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/london-cityscapes-by-photographer-will-pearson/5207697.article

The www.siemens.co.uk website now features a large panorama which I shot to show the various landmarks on the London skyline. The panorama works to highlight Siemens’ key London projects, and the scrolling mechanic is a great new way in which to use panoramic photography.

To view the work in situ, please visit www.siemens.co.uk.

If you were looking at the last entry on the blog and decided to go and visit the Barclays.com homepage to view the panorama in the last couple of days – you might have been a little confused to see a different shot! The panorama has now changed to a different gigapixel panorama which I shot for Barclays. You can see a close-up of this shot here:

If you visit the Barclays.com homepage you’ll see a panoramic cityscape looking north over the Thames. I was commissioned by Barclays’ agency to shoot a London skyline panorama with the Barclays HQ at Canary Wharf. I shot the image from a secret rooftop location in Greenwich to give a unique perspective on this familiar view.

I was commissioned to create a panorama of the renowned North London venue, The Roundhouse in Camden. The venue is a converted railway roundhouse (an engine shed) built in 1846 and now used for theatre, dance and gigs. It was a great space to shoot, and I shall be showcasing some more Roundhouse photography later in the year. For now, you can see the panorama of the front of the Roundhouse on the front cover of the 2009 brochure above. You can also click below to download a PDF of the full brochure.

Link to full PDF Brochure

I’ve just returned from a trip to Chicago, where I was lucky enough to be able to shoot from some incredible locations. I’ll be working on these images (including a series of Chicago skyline panoramas) over the coming weeks but in the meantime, here are a couple of stills to give you a taste of this fast-moving, high-living city on the lake. In a city where space is at a premium, the downtown residents of Marina City live stacked above their cars.

View of the Chicago River.

West Wacker Drive, down at street level. Chicago’s streets doubled as Gotham for the Batman films, and it’s easy to see why.