Fun with Panoramas

Posted on 30 January 2008

Earlier I posted a panoramic photograph of the Seattle skyline shot at night from West Seattle. While I’m on the subject, a bit more about getting this shot. I go to Seattle somewhat regularly, having a number of relatives living in the area, and I’ve come to enjoy photographing Seattle quite a bit. My son lives in downtown Seattle and knows far more about the area than I do, so I welcome his suggestions about interesting things to see and places to go.

He had mentioned that the view of the Seattle waterfront from West Seattle is stunning. I’d never been over there, though I’d seen the area from the air on approach to SeaTac. In any case, I had the idea of getting out there at night in the back of my mind during my last visit. One rainy evening I took him back to his place in the Capitol Hill area and – miracle of miracles! – the rain seemed to let up. I quickly decided to head over to West Seattle and see if I could find a place to do my photography.

Having no idea what the roads are like in West Seattle, I pretty quickly ended up in the wrong place – on a road heading across the area and away from the Seattle view. I finally just decided to take the next right turn and see where it would lead. After wandering around on a bunch of random streets I finally made it down to the waterline where there seemed to be some kind of park. I stopped, checked out my surroundings, grabbed my camera, lenses, and tripod and went to work. The rain held off just long enough for me to grab a few panorama sequences, and a couple of them turned out quite well.