There is something that intrigues me about panoramas. Ever since I took my first successful one in England years ago, I find myself drawn to them. Landscapes and nature are my natural tendencies of photographic subjects, but the vastness of them speaks to me, and I always have the urge to zoom out as far as I can, and when that doesn’t work to capture the scene entirely, I lean on panoramas.
This particular panorama captures the “point” in Point Lobos nature reserve in Carmel, California. As you can see from the left of the picture, the morning layer had not yet burnt off when we went for this hike. It adds an eerie, almost ethereal feeling to the photograph that simply can’t be manufactured. The pictures are muted, and perhaps I could’ve done a bit more in post-processing to bring out the vibrancy of the colors. Nonetheless, the colors are muted as the morning was by the marine layer. It is a natural touch, and one which I’m happy with.
I often joke that I’m a good photographer, but a great editor. This is one of those rare photographs where I have done very little to touch it up, instead using Lightroom simply to stitch the pictures together to create the panorama. I always enjoy the photos that I take, which I don’t have to edit. They seem in many ways more pure to me, although at the end of the day, all that anyone sees is the finished product and not the raw material. Nevertheless, I know what has gone into the editing process. I always feel more like a successful photographer and not a successful editor when I am able to capture a scene in the camera rather than on the computer.
ST. AMAND PHOTOGRAPHY 