Pano Madness

Within photography there's a very minute niche market. A lot of people attempt it, most people play around with it, very few people are known for it. Yet whenever we talk about landscape photography, panoramas always come into the equation.

Most people will think about panoramas as long sweeping photos of landscape, and done mainly to fit more into a photo. And that's true ... in most cases. But the real reason behind panoramas (for me personally), is to increase detail in my photos. It doesn't make sense when I first say it, but it'll come to you eventually ... I promise. For example, my blog from a couple of days ago, that photo looks more or less like an ordinary photo with ordinary proportions. In reality it was 9 photos stitched into one ... 9 photos at 10mp each theoretically gives you a 90mp photo (in a perfect world). We all know that doesn't happen, but you get the idea and you can really see how detail is increased just by stitching photos together.

The panorama above IS a traditional panorama, but I did it to get sharper detail in the background. I quite like how the row of trees separate the peacefulness inside the area and the complete chaos on the outside (photographically speaking and in reality).

So my children, go forth and stitch up your photos, you'll be surprised with the results. But ofcourse, I can't end this post without mentioning the master of panoramics ... and he is indeed Ken Duncan.

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"If you've lost somebody,

Put a lighter in the air"

There are 2 things that many people fear. The first is to lose a loved one, the next is the fear of becomming irrelevant after death. In my case, both these questions have almost equivalent Which brings me to the question, if I died tomorrow, would you remember me? Have I done enough in my time here to create a lasting impression?

Ofcourse your closest family and friends will always remember you, as with colleagues and acquantances. But what about the wider demographic? Will children walk past my grave and not even be curious enough to read what's on the gravestone? Or will they turn to their mother and ask who I was. Is that mother going to be able to come up with an answer, or will she simply say she doesn't know. Or will people one day walk past my grave and say "Yep, he made a difference"

By the end of your time on earth, you are either a hero or a statistic. I do not want to become a statistic, I need to be remembered for making an impact and immortalised in memory. R Kelly has his music, Kobe Bryant has his basketball legacy, Ken Duncan has his photography, and Tutankhamun has a pyramid. I need mine ...

The priest from a funeral I went to today made a very interesting point. On every gravestone is your birth date and the date of your death, separated by a hyphen. Which means all the events that happened between the day you were born and the day you passed away, is represented by - ... How does that make you feel? In my lifetime I could have solved world hunger, redeveloped the urban environment to make it more ecofriendly, single-handedly stopped cyclones and tsunamis ... and that hyphen will still be there, a single stroke representing the period of my existence.

I'm not ready to go, nor am I ready to let anyone go ... and I'll strive towards that immortality for as long as I'm able. By the way, no hyphen for me, no dates either ... I'd much rather be an enigma, a mystery, a legacy.

p.s. If I end up achieving some of the things mentioned in the post, I'd like my own pyramid :)

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