Panoramas
Covid… it stole over a week of my October (and my wife’s too, as I’m writing this) and, now that I have recovered, I find myself with no new images from this month to show. So I will talk about one of my favorite photography format, a format that changed the way I see my photography: panoramas.
It seems like a perfect time because fall colors aren’t here quite yet. Also, panoramas are not social media friendly so I’ll gladly take this opportunity to finally share these images here.
Today will be a trip, organized not geographically, but from details to grand views. I hope you like the voyage through this horizontal world (rotate your phone from here).
When I walk along summer streams there is always something that strikes me: the contrast between rushing water and still objects/plants. For example, this little hand of grass stands, fragile and thin, against the power of rushing water. It cannot win, and yet, it is still there, resilience in the flesh. In fact, it was a fight for me too. I had to find just the right shutter speed so that it was long enough to capture the water in motion and also short enough to freeze the grass’s motion. It was a patience test, coupled with a technical balancing act. It may be the least assuming of all the panos I’ll show you today but it probably was the hardest to shoot.
Let’s take a small step back and appreciate the way nature knows how to occupy every possible nook and cranny. You’re looking at a fairly high waterfall made of round boulders. That is already not a very common sight but the key aspect is the ivy that grows along the under side of those boulders. It’s almost as if there is no more comfortable place to grow but under a waterfall for that ivy. I wonder what it looks like in winter… If the water freezes, is the ivy enshrined in ice?
Last water image! This waterfall is one of the most famous in Korea: Towangseong Falls - 토왕성폭포. It certainly is a stunning sight, I will return to see it in the future, despite the photographic difficulty of creating a unique image of it. Here is my try either way. On a very rainy day, we went up to find the falls impressively nourished, under a heavy sky. I used these two pines to guide your eyes towards the water. Perfect segue to the next image.
Don’t look for a subject here, it’s all about shapes and textures. Round boulders vs thin twisted trunks, smooth rocks vs veiny tree trunks. I imagine this shot printed really big, all the minutest details would stand out exquisitely. I really love how cropping the overall image to such a thin panoramic ratio allows me to keep all the useless information out of sight and let you focus on the important aspects of this scene. It’s almost like, just looking at these trunks, I can feel their cracks on the skin of my hands…
This panorama is also about texture but with a dose of mystery. I shot it at the Seoul National Cemetary, one cold and humid winter morning. The whole place is a wonder in general but that fog threw it entirely in a different dimension…
This image is an impressionist fresco. Dabs of reds, oranges and yellows. The textures of the main tree trunk or of the leaf carpet matter but overall I tried to capture the division of space that these unbalanced colors create.
Since the previous image was in autumn and impressionistic, let’s take a big step back from the forest and consider it as an overall shape and color, lost in the low clouds rolling through at sunrise…
Here the sun is setting on one of my favorite mountain in Chuncheon - 춘천 called Samaksan - 삼악산. The light/shadow contrast created by that light and reflected in rays on the haze was breathtaking. The panorama format allowed me, here again, to focus on the key subject of the view. It is definitely why I love it!
Slowly the city makes an appearance in this series. Unusual for my blog but I do have some panos of the city I want to share… this one is from the heart of winter, a tiny azalea shrub survives the cold, hanging on the face of a cliff, in front of Seoul at sunrise… I tried to show it as it reaches desperately for the little sunlight it will get that day…
This panorama I was so lucky to catch. It was a cold winter day with light snow forecast when, right after a quick snowfall, the sky opened and the sunlight illuminated the snow showers over the city. Quite a magical moment!
This image is the one that made me fall in love with panos. On a chilly late summer morning, the sun escaped the heavy cloud coverage to light the city almost horizontally. Another magical moment…
This month’s final image. I wanted to finish with a positive note, something inspirational. There is nothing like a spring sunrise, a lonely tree and a friend looking away at the horizon to convey a message of hope.
Thank you so much for reading about this wonderful format, panorama, that allows me to capture nature in a very specific way. I hope you enjoyed seeing details of nature and grand views in this version. I am now eagerly awaiting fall colors. Covid being passed I want to see as much as possible…
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A bientôt!