Hi friends,

My passion for Panoramic Photography has evolved over time and keeps growing as time goes by. I love the fact that I am able to display a much wider and larger canvas at high resolution to my viewers. A panoramic photograph is able to evoke in the viewer's mind a completely different and much higher level of emotion than a normal single small rectangular 35 mm photograph would, simply because of the fact that it displays a wider panoramic perspective of the landscape, place or architecture which more closely relates to how the human eye actually sees and perceives.

It also allows the artist a much bigger canvas on which to exercise his or her creativity. Another aspect that excites me is while i am on the location I shoot all that raw footage (many single shots with different settings, varied angles, different exposure levels) and then come home and sit with my MacBook to put them all together, stitching them up seamlessly into a wide stunning panoramic image. This becomes a creation of multiple dimensions. It thoroughly excites me to see the picture I had visualised in my mind evolve into fruition as a single beautiful image.

What then is a Panoramic Photograph?

In simple terms, a photograph that has an aspect ratio of 2:1 or larger, the image being at least twice as wide as it is high. It is an image showing a field of view approximating, or greater than, that of the human eye - about 160 degree by 75 degree

Aerial view of Salzburg, Austria

View a limited collection here...

It is also very important to first visualise the desired panoramic image in your minds eye and then shoot the raw footage for the panoramic image exercising a lot of care, meticulous attention to detail, proper and sufficient overlaps and consistent alignment of the camera angles (especially when shooting hand held) and moving the camera along the same horizontal or vertical plane to avoid parallax errors. Otherwise it can get really frustrating when the images refuse to stitch and blend well together and you realise your vision of creating an awesome panoramic image slipping away.

Over the last weekend, it was a tough balance between time, right selections and creativity to achieve a thrilling finish to successfully catch the early bird offer and submit my entries to the Espon International Pano Awards 2018 competition. How I fare this year remains to be seen...

Epson International Pano Awards is an annual top level international competition exclusively dedicated to Panoramic Photography where the finest quality panoramic photography work from over 5000 entries across over 71 countries is judged and awarded every year

I have been consistently participating in this competition since 2015 and every year I have managed to win a few awards. I have also found one of my image placed in The Top 50 and published in the 2016 Winners Gallery on their website. That really gives me a lot of incentive to keep participating every year and aim for the Grand Prize! The real challenge and hard work lies in going out there and collecting unique and exciting high quality imagery to keep ahead of the strong competition.

My winning Pano Awards...

Hope you enjoyed a brief insight into my thoughts and experience with panoramic photography and the intense creative fulfilment it brings me!

Please ask if you have any questions and share your own experiences and feedback

Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Zubair Safdar