I’ve started to prepare for my exhibit of panorama photography at the Appleton Public Library from November 2 – December 30, 2009. I’ve started to narrow down my selections for the show you can see at the Library Preview page. Here are some of my other favorite panorama pictures from my travels. My definition of a panorama is a photograph that has been assembled from many parts. Each of the pictures below is from more than one photograph. Can you find the seams?

Mt St Helens Panorama, View 2, v1

Mount St. Helens – It was amazing to hike around the volcano and see the evidence of devastation from the eruption in 1980 and also to see how the plant life has been recovering. This is a view from the main hiking trail along the ridge from the Johnson Ridge Observatory.

Fjallbacka Panorama

Fjällbacka, Sweden – This is a great little town on the Atlantic coast of Sweden and a favorite haunt of Ingrid Bergman.

Kimcheon street scene panorama

Gimcheon, Korea – I was staying at a local hotel near the JikJi Temple and went for a walk in the morning. It was a cold blustery day and I was the only one walking around. I paused under the awning you can see on the right hand side and took this series of pictures and spliced them together. This area of town is full of small family run restaurants. The pink sign across the street says “KyeongNam Restaurant.” The exact location of this spot is 36.116°N, 128.013°E. (I prefer degrees and decimal degrees. It’s just easier.)

Narita Panorama, Photoshop v1

Narita Airport, Japan – Here is a photograph of a Northwest Airlines 747 as dusk in Tokyo, Japan. We have just flown 14 hours from Chicago following the daylight for a very long day.

Mauna Kea panorama

Mauna Kea – This is a picture from the Saddle Road that goes between Mauna Loa (behind me) and Mauna Kea which is off in the distance. The road going away from the picture leads up the Mauna Kea visitor center and if you have a 4-wheel drive car right up to the summit. This is already at an elevation of 6500 feet above sea level. We are standing on a small piece of rock called Pu'u Huluhulu that has been surrounded by lava flows. You can see the black new lava with no vegetation on it that is from an eruption of Mauna Loa 18 miles away. The exact location of this spot is 19.687°N and 155.466°W. Note that you have to check with your car rental company to make sure they allow you to use your car on the Saddle Road.

Palm Island Panorama, v3

Palm Island, Florida – This is a great little private island on the gulf side of Florida a few miles south of Tampa Bay. We stayed in a condo on the island with a really nice gulf view. It was quite a stormy few days, but with enough time to relax and do beachcombing for fantastic sea shells that wash up on shore. This is an early picture that I tried to make into a panorama and you can see that not all the joints are exactly correct especially in the woodwork of the porch, but I really liked this picture.

Vigelands Park – This is a famous sculpture park created by Gustav Vigeland in Oslo Norway. His monolith pictured here is the centerpiece of the park .

Kennedy Space Center, Florida – It’s amazing how things change over the years. We went on a tour of the Kennedy Space Center in 1994 and the Saturn V rocket was sitting in a field for viewing. You got off the bus to take a look at it. It was pretty easy to figure out which end was the top! Now there is a great building around the rocket which has been split into its stages so you can easily see that there is a lot of equipment inside it. Here is an example of a vertical panorama. This was just too tall to fit into one shot – even with a wide angle lens so I had to put three photos together in a vertical format.