Panoramas

Of course, I know I should use a rotating camera with slotted aperture when making panoramas, but with the years I have gotten better putting together series of images from an ordinary camera. And it's fun!

Brussels Lausanne, Switzerland, old Marabou, Upplands-Väsby, Sweden Puerto Rico The radio telescope in Arecibo

Rom, St.Peter's Square Salisbury Santa Cruz, California Öresund Bridge

Lithuania   Nida, from the sand dune top   Song Festival 2003   Trakai   Vilnius, Presidential Palace   Vilnius, large city overview

Puerto Rico and the Radio Telescope in Arecibo, 2001

The Radio Telescope

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Like a giant grey sea it opens up in the jungle, the world's largest antenna. You don't understand how big it is, until you see it in its entirety: 305 meteres (1000 feet) in diametre. The receiving complex, The Platform, weighs 900 mt and is suspended 200 metres up in the air in the focus of the antenna, in three wires. The round house up there, The Gregorian is a three storey building, containing 6 cryogenically cooled receivers.
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The Intermediate Frequency Room of Arecibo. A detailed explanation of the numbers in the picture is available here. It will open in a new window. (Well, it won't, but as soon as I get it finished it will.)
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The Control Room of Arecibo, where the antenna is pointed and focused, and is set to scan the Universe. The door to the right leads to the IF Room.

Puerto Rico in General

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A Catholic church yard some distance from Arecibo City. The graves look a little like the houses, white rectangular blocks. This is a poor churchyard in the mountains. A maze, a clutter of gravestones, with colour splashes here and there. The poorest can't even afford stones, and have to do with galvanised steel tubes.
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This is what San Juan looks like from the roof of the old Spanish fort Castillo de san Cristóbal in the middle of the Old Town.

Marabou Chocolate Factory in Upplands-Väsby, Sweden

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The tastiest picture you have ever seen, the Museum Shop at the Marabou chocolate factory in Upplands-Väsby north of Stockholm. This is a shop with style, with high-grade wood panelling and plush-covered chairs. The shop was originally placed in Gothenburg, but was dismantled and shelved and then rebuilt in Upplands-Väsby. Marabou (Kraft Sweden AB) offers guided tours, during which you can feast your eyes on this unusually tasty shop.

The City Hall in Brussels

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After a press conference in Brussels, Belgium I took a stroll around town and made this two-picture standing panorama of the City Hall at the Old Town square. A close-up of the fantastic, well-made sculptures adorning the whole building is available in the Gallery.

Salisbury Cathedral

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After having attended a training course in Frome, England, we for some reason ended up in Salisbury. This is a morning picture of the majestic cathedral, made up of four different pictures. There are other pictures from the cathedral in the Gallery.

The Öresund Bridge, Autumn of 1998

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I made a visit to the, then, only half finished Öresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark, at the point where it leaves Malmoe city. This time I didn't forget to lock the aperture. Behold the nice result! The truth is, I did get colour shifts between the pictures anyway, that I had to remove in Photoshop later. It is strange to think that the water depth is no more than 6 metres anywhere between Sweden and Denmark. In principle it would be possible to walk across, on stilts. Notwithstanding this, the waves were high and the sightseeing boat jumped a lot when we went out to get a better look at the high section (to the far right, having pylons 206 meters in height). It was impossible to stand the beer on the table. Each bridge section (between two pillars) weighs 1800 metric tons, and has been lifted in place by a specially built pontoon crane nicknamed The Swan, capable of lifting 8000 tons. The bridge section is placed in a lifting device, which also weighs some 1800 tons. At the Danish end, they use concrete tunnel sections instead, and lay them out in a trench dug in the sea floor (the water is so shallow, they had to dig out a trench, or the tunnel would be sticking out of the water). Each concrete section weighs some 36,000 tons. After the section has been cast, it is made watertight and floated to its correct position, where it is sunk to its final resting-place. Of course, section number 13 leaked and sunk in the wrong place.

Panoramas from Lithuania 1999-2004

Vilnius, spring of 1999 2 MB The capitol of Lithuania, Vilnius, has much beauty to offer. Photographed like this, from the top of Gediminas Tower, situated on a high hill in the middle of the city, it is impressive, with famous sights standing on line. The Gediminas Tower, built in the 14th century, was the city's original fortification. It is the symbol of Lithuania, and it's newly renovated. You have to have Java to see the picture. After enjoying, you close everything by closing the text window! This panorama was put together from 14 individual shots made with a 50 mm lens. It starts and ends with the three crosses on The Cross Hill, i.e. a more than 360-degree sweep. Below the picture is a schematic illustration, pointing out the buildings and sights. The three crosses are said to have their origin in the crucifixion of three monks in this place, some time during the middle ages. The Communists knocked the crosses down and towed them away, but after the independence they were soon up again. The tree crosses are the symbol of religious Lithuania. Vilnius has over 40 churches, and the foremost, the Cathedral is almost in the middle of the picture. The picture shows the three saints mounted on top of the Cathedral, the saints that the Communists removed and smashed. A restorer was working with new icons for eight years, and they were finally erected in the beginning of 1999. Other prominent objects are the Vilnius University, being over 400 years of age, plus a grand University Church. Also check out the Church of St. Anne, probably the most beautiful façade in the whole of Lithuania. Song Festival in Vilnius, 2003 198 kB The Song festival in 2003 in the Vingis Park in Vilnius to commemorate the 750:th anniversary of King Mindaugas was a sparkling adventure with 3000-head choirs, several orchestras, lots of dancers, fireworks and other special effects. Being Swedish, I was amazed by the multitude and the refreshing, absoulute freedom from all pop and rock music. This was no “celebrity show”, but ordinary people coming from all corners of the world to show their admiration for the free Lithuania. Nida Panorama 2003 635 kB Out on the Nerigna sandbank all the way down by the Russian border is the holiday resort Nida, and if you get up on the biggest sand dune you'll se this panorama. The image cover about half the with of the sandbank and som of the Curonian Lagoon, the sea enclosed by Neringa. From the left, you see: the lighthouse on Mount Urbas, a military installation, the radio towers, the new church and the Nida harbour. Trakai Castle, spring of 2000 500 kB The pride of all Lithuanians is the medieval Trakai Castle, an hour's drive from Vilnius. It was the grand duke Vytautas, who is said to have united the country and extended its borders all the way to the Black Sea in the 14:th century, who built Trakai. As yiou can see, the castle is in the middle of a lake and the only connection with the mainland is via a small island, to the right. On this island lived Vytauta's guardspeople, the Karajim, whose country Vytoutas had “taken care of” during his campaigns. Anyway, they were considered extremely reliable. Tha castle was almost completely in ruins and has been rebuilt more or less from scratch. The restauration work is awesome, and today Trakai is a first class tourist attraction. A painting with a subject like this hangs on the wall in most Lithuanian homes. This panorama is made with a digital camera, standing on a bridge on shore. The sky has not been faked. 930 kB Now we've come a little closer, standing on the bridge beween the Karajim Island and the castle, somewhere in the middle of the previous panorama. This picture was put together from seven images. The Vilnius Presidential Palace 158 kB The presidential palace in Vilnius was originally home to the Bishop of Vilnius, during the 15th century. It served as residence for the Russian Tsar's general governor from 1795, housed Napoleon in 1812, and later housed Kotusov, who beat Napoleon. It was rebuilt during 1824-1832, served as officer's mess for the hoodlums of the Red Army, was turned into an art museum and concert hall, and finally made presidential palace by the Communist president Brazauskas. Quite a varied history, that is. On the rooftop in the middle is the Lithuanian coat of arms, the knight on horseback with shield. The panorama has been put together out of three pictures taken with a wide-angle lens, shot without tripod one night in March 1999. The building is unusually nicely lit, although the lights are not working in some places.

St. Peter's Square in Rome, 1999

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And now something for you with the very big screen and the very big patience: St. Peter's Square, photographed in the summer of 1999, in 1.6 megabyte size. Enjoy all the detail. This picture was put together from 7 separate pictures. As usual, ths sky has been fixed, because it's not possible to get the sky and the buildings good at the same time. And I also had to adjust the Pines of Rome and had the pleasure of removing a construction crane behind the pines to the right. The picture is 1000 x 3800 pixels, with very fine detail. Note the half Japanese tourist at middle right. I let her remain just for fun. The very same tourist has walked a bit and is avaliable as a whole, together with a friend, a little more to the right.

View over Santa Cruz, California, 1999

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I was on a documentary trip to the University of Californa in Santa Cruz (UCSC) and participated in the Santa Cruz Operations' great show, the SCO Forum 1999. Here, there Unix, everywhere Unix, but during one lunch I managed to sneak away to the highest hilltop on campus and make this panorama of Santa Cruz City. The Pacific Ocean is at the horizon. The sky is faked. It was impossible to succed with the hues of both the ground and the sky. You will find other pictures from California in the Californian Gallery and among the Magazine Articles.

Lausanne, Summer of 1978

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This is my first panorama, and because it's also the worst, it's here at the bottom. Here I am on a small artificial hill outside Vèvay, a suburb of Lausanne, in Switzerland. There was lunch break at the Bobst factory, where I was attending a course in how to fix phototypesetting machines. The weather was fantastic, so I took some time and made a 300-degree panorama picture of the surroundings. The factory lies hidden beyond a small group of trees behind me, trees that prevented me from making a 360-degree picture. In those days I wasn't very clever, so I forgot to lock the aperture, and so I got different exposures in different directions, resulting in different colour temperatures. It was difficult to make a tolerable collection of all the pictures in PhotoShop.