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.

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.

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.

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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.

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:

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.

Between 2001 and 2009, I’ve been based at a studio in Crouch End, North London. Over the last 8 years, I have been capturing the scene outside the door in heavy rain. From the same position, but different days and times of year. (more…)

© Will Pearson 2008

I have added a new image to the portfolio – a striking black and white image showing the London Eye (Millennium Wheel) on the South Bank in London. The London Eye is in the centre of the image, but there are other well known London landmarks in view – (more…)

We have just launched an area of the site called (unsurprisingly!) ‘Stock Images’ which is intended to be an archive of my panoramic photography, split by category, making it easy for clients to look through and select an appropriate panoramic stock shot. There are currently four categories – cityscapes, landscapes, alternate perspective and London.

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EXO2 – a glossy magazine for fashion and the arts has run a 12 page feature on some of my panoramas. The above image is from the cover of the magazine and shows my Hyde Park image in the background.

Image © Will Pearson 2008

The Salton Sea is an incredible place. An enormous inland sea, created by accident when irrigation went hopelessly wrong. The Americans did their best to make good of the disaster, marketing the Salton Sea as a holiday destination – which worked for a while.

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Another in my series of American panoramas, these virtual tours are from Death Valley National Park in California.

© Will Pearson 2008

The Devil’s Cornfield Virtual Tour
The Devil’s Cornfield in Death Valley at dusk.

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Image © Will Pearson 2008

I have been working on the series of virtual tours and panoramas from my trips to the USA over the last year, and I’ll be adding some to the site over the next few days.

This shot is of a caravan I came across in the desert outside the ghost town of Bodie, California. It has seen some action – it looks like it has been used for shooting practice, and has been set alight at least once too. However, it’s holding out against the assaults for now.

Please click the link to see the abandoned caravan virtual tours.