Panoramic Images

These paroramic photos were made with a standard digital camera and the Auto-Stitch program.
Camera = Olympus FE-170 6Mpixel.

I think panoramic, or wide-angle, photos are better at capturing the reality of experiencing the view of a scene. When we are actually looking at something, although we only see the detail directly in front of us (as our eyes have a greater density of light receptors in the centre of our vision), there is a feeling that we have a much greater field of view (around 180 degrees), despite the fact that our peripheral vision is very blurred. Therefore wider angle photos better capture this sense I think. In this case, I'm stitching together many images from a narrow angle camera to make wide-angle photos.

Secondly, in a real scene, if you see something interesting, you can move towards it and see it in greater detail. This has often been done (badly) in movies, where the protagonist zooms into grainy CCTV footage to spot a vital clue. I was partly inspired by the 50 million pixel display I saw at the Idea Festival in Louisville, Kentucky. On the display, you could see an image of the interior of the space-shuttle which was the size of a cinema screen. Yet you could walk right up to it and see the detail and read the individual buttons on the control panel. Below are some early attempts at capturing this idea.

A guy called Brad Templeton takes some pretty amazing panoramic photos too: His Site

To view any image full-size, Click on it and a new window will open (they are between 1-8 megs each).



Blessington Street Basin
This is Blessington Street Basin; also known as Dublin's secret garden.
This picturesque area is at the end of my road, and leads on to the centre of Phibsboro.
Some historical information is given below. Sourced from here.

In 1810 a reservoir, the Blessington Basin, was dug ... to supply water to the locality.

The small reservoir had been made almost redundant by the construction of a new reservoir at Vartry in 1868, and served only the Jameson Whiskey distilleries at Smithfield, until they left the city in the 1970s.

In 1993, after decades of stagnation and neglect, Dublin Corporation's Parks Department began restoring it as a recreational facility, removing 6000 tons of silt and debris, adding a fountain, enlarging the central island for wildlife and undertaking extensive replanting. The Blessington Basin still obtains its water from the canal above the 8th lock, two miles away, but is now a picturesque walled park of one and a quarter acres, with a beautifully paved and landscaped walk around a large oblong body of 4.7 million gallons of water, fenced off by wrought-iron railings, and scattered with sculptures and places to sit.


Blessington Street Basin from another (better) angle.

Family Home
It was getting dark when I took these photos (of the house on the left), and those of the first beach shots (below) too, so the quality suffers as a result. I hope to take some more in better lighting. Notice how the camera flash blanks out the registration number - auto-anonymity! If only it worked for the speed cameras. The shots of the garden were taken on a bright cold Sunday morning in December.

Portmarnock Beach
This panorama (above) was supposed to be much larger. In fact, I took photos of the whole beach but the auto-stitch program couldn't find matches between the 'middle' images and the rest (due to poor lighting and the resulting textureless images). I'll try again on a brighter morning. And again when we have a hint of sunlight and heat, generating waves of swimmers and bathers!

Portmarnock beach stretching all the way to Howth on the horizon.

This is a panoramic shot of Portmarnock, taken from the Beach. On the far right is the Martello Tower, then to the left of that is the White Sands Hotel (the yellow building). In the centre of the image is a small kiosk with a red and white striped roof. This shop opens on those rare summer days, to sell ice-cream, buckets and spades, and other assorted beach equipment!

The kiosk can be seen in this satellite image from Google maps
Here are some more images of it: Painting 1 and Painting 2: The Martello tower is in the background of the first one.




Sutton (Dublin Road)


 (4th Feb 2007)
Looking north towards Howth peninsula

(4th Feb 2007)
Looking south towards the city of Dublin


Howth harbour

Fairview Park
Fairview Park from across a busy road on a mild winter day.

Aikido: Fairview Dojo
From an Aikido course in the Fairview Dojo.

G.P.O. in Dublin City Centre
The General Post Office (GPO) (Ard-Oifig an Phoist) in Dublin City Centre: A landmark historical building, central to the Easter rising of 1916, and still in operation as headquarters of An Post, the postal service of the Ireland.

Bungee Jump Crane


Every year in February, we have "Rag Week" in DCU, where the tradition is to lower the attendance at lectures and tutorials and to raise the population of the student bar, as well as raising money for worthy charities. Bungee jumping is one of the many ways that altruism is combined with reckless behaviour in true Rag Week spirit.



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