Panoramic Landscapes

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialized equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally elongated fields of view. Panoramic landscapes are wide, expansive views that capture a large area of scenery in one image, often showcasing the beauty of nature. Referring to the wide or ultra-wide angled nature of the shot, these images are taken by a specialized camera with a wide lenses or created by stitching together multiple photos from different positions.

Joiner Photos

Joiner photography is a photographic technique wherein multiple pictures are assembled into one A joiner photo is a single image made up of multiple overlapping images. It is a photo collage when the artist assembles an image from several overlapping photographs. David Hockney is the most notable artist that uses this technique, creating a piece of art called ’Pearblossom Highway’ which depicts a view of an American Highway. It is a collage compiled from over 700 separate photographs. The artist himself describes his work as a drawing as opposed to a photographic piece.

My Panoramic Photos

During our class trip to Havre des Pas, I took a collection of panoramic photos in order to be able to capture the entire setting and view of the area. With the walk being along the coast, I photographed a variety of concepts in my pictures with natural elements like rocks and the sea as well as industrial buildings. This referred to the photography movement of New Topographics where visuals of a man-altered environment are photographed. My shots of the recycling centre highlight this theme considering the position of such artificial and modern structures along side and juxtaposing a stunning coastal area. The panoramic technique of taking pictures was specifically useful for this shoot in particular to be allow for a raw and realistic view of the area to be seen with both natural and created environment as opposed to a refined and selective image.

My Joiner Photos

For my joiner photos, I took multiple photographs of a selected structure at a variety of angles and distances. I then brought these pictures into a canvas on photoshop and manually aligned them to match up against each other in the way they would have if it was a singular photo. To make my edits stand out and appear artistic, I added a thin shadow border to each image which helped to create depth in the overall composition.

The photos that are selected are all the ones that are worth further editing.

These photos are similar to Ansel Adams because of the formal elements used. Ansel Adams’ photos were all about formality. For example the high levels of contrast and high tonal range that I have captured is similar to his photos. There is a lot of texture in the photos – the rocks and the sea are providing these natural shapes and forms not found in manmade architecture. I have deliberately used a high depth of field by setting the aperture to 16 or above, which is not only reminiscent of his images but also allows the camera to capture detail on all different ‘layers’ of the photos. This creates an effect where none of the image is out of focus. I also tried to keep my shutter speed over 1/250 so there was no camera motion blur and so the sea was crisp and frozen in time.

The place where I took these photos is what is known as an SSE in jersey which means “Site of Special Interest”. This means the area has some particular qualities or wildlife that the Jersey government wants to protect and preserve. I think that is a very good thing as we can see, throughout the rest of the island there is other beautiful landscapes like this that non-local millionaires buy and build massive, ugly houses on – that they don’t even live in most of the time, just for the sake of paying less tax. Sites being SSE’s protects it from this. I did this photoshoot with the intent of supporting this cause as I think massive development on rural landscapes ruins the environment and is actually extremely sad. I aimed to capture the beauty of these places to support this and show people why these places need to be protected.

possible things can take photos of –

Scrapyards, building sites, cranes, restoration yards, derelict ruins, car parks, underpass, harbours and dockyards, industrial centres, retail park, stadiums, floodlight arenas, staircases, road systems, circuit boards, pipework, telephone poles, towers, pylons, shop displays, escalators, bars, libraries, theatres and cinemas, gardens, parks, playgrounds, swimming pool

possible titles –

Dereliction / Isolation / Lonely Places / Open Spaces / Close ups / Freedom / Juxtaposition / Old and new / Erosion / Altered Landscapes / Utopia / Dystopia / Wastelands / Barren / Skyscapes / Urban Decay / Former Glories / Habitats / Social Hierarchies / Entrances and Exits / Storage / Car Parks / Looking out and Looking in / Territory / Domain / Concealed and Revealed

possible places to go –

NICHOLAS NIXON –

Nicholas Nixon (Detroit, 1947) graduated with a degree in American Literature in 1969 and went on to enroll in a postgraduate program in Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. After completing his studies he relocated to Brookline, outside of Boston, and began his career as an independent photographer and professor of photography at Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

Influenced by photographers such as Walker Evans, his interest in portraiture and social photography is visible in renowned series such as The Brown Sisters (1975 – present) and People with AIDS (1991). Nixon has been able to portray issues related to the passing of time, intimacy, love, and illness with detail and emotion.

The photographer has received numerous awards, such as the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1977 and 1986, and the National Endowment for the Arts Photography Fellowship in 1976, 1980 and 1987. His works belong to some of the most prestigious collections worldwide including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago, and La Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris. His photographs have been exhibited extensively including at MoMA in New York.

These images of the vast cityscapes of New York and Boston, at once both ordered and chaotic, were part of one of the most influential exhibitions of the seventies, New Topographies: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape at the George Eastman House.

image analysis –

visual –

within this image you can see that this is a black and white cityscape, which has a winter setting. this can be seen from the snow covered streets and cars. also the building seem like they are early to mid 20th century architecture, which suggests that its an industrialized city. which in this image you can see few or no people which emphasizing the built environment over human presence.

technical –

the image is shot from a an elevated perspective, which is an wide angle. this provides a broad view of the city. this photo has a deep depth of field, this keeps all elements sharp and in focus. there is a high contrast between the snow, dark buildings and the smoke, which enhances the texture and details.

contextual –

within this photo its likely a mid 20th century city, which is in north America, during the period of industrial and economic growth. there is also reflects of the post war urban renewal with infrastructure prioritizing efficiency and function.

conceptual –

this photo there is industrialization and modernization, you can see this from the smokestacks, large buildings and structural roadways which reflect urban growth. there are environmental impacts, this is seen in the thick smoke which suggests pollution, which is caused by industrial expansion. also the cold, structured atmosphere, which is shown in the black and white aesthetics and the winter setting evoke a sense of isolation or detachment.

artist reference –

Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print –

• Foreground vs background | Dominant features
• Composition | low horizon line | Square format
• Perspective and detail / cluttering
• Wide depth of field | Large Format Camera
• Colour | impact and relevance
• Nationalism vs mobility vs isolation
• Social commentary | The American Dream ?
• An appreciation of the formal elements : line, shape, form, texture, pattern, tone etc

technical –

within this image you can see that it uses natural daylight, which you can tell that it could of been taken in the middle of the day or late morning, also you can see by the shadow’s that the sun is on the left. furthermore the shadows you can see have a hard edge. and you can see in the image that its a cold light.

visual –

firstly you can see that a hard edge is seen in the image by the structure, the mountain’s in the background and the American building such as the petrol station. furthermore within the image there is some aliment with the rule of thirds, such as the bottom 3rd is all clotted with multiply aspects within it. the image has an vanishing point within the image which draws people to the centre of the image.

contextual –

you can see that in this image that industrialisation is seen and from the cars and transport show that people are connected but at the time people weren’t worried about the environment, which before cars people were isolated. but this image shows that people are now connected. also showing this is the aromatises and petrol stations. in addition within this image you can see the the main colours are red, white and blue which could represent nationalism, theses colours are the same as the American flag.

New Topographics was a term coined by William Jenkins in 1975 to describe a group of American photographers whose pictures had a similar banal aesthetic, in that they were formal, mostly black and white prints of the urban landscape. The photographers associated with New Topographics include Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Nicholas Nixon and Bernd and Hiller Becher, who were inspired by the man-made.

Composition. Centred, ‘matter of fact’ style framing, flat horizontal and straight vertical lines are all hallmarks of New Topographic photography. Composition is everything and what you exclude from your frame is just as important as what you include.

What was the New Topographics a reaction to?

It is a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams (born 1937) is an American photographer who has focused on the changing landscape of the American West. His work first came to prominence in the mid-1970s through his book The New West (1974) and his participation in the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape in 1975.

Adams Style – a spare formalism coupled with emotional depth.

Analysis

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Contextual (Photography in Relation to Its Environment & Purpose)

Robert Adams’ work in the New Topographics movement (1970s) responded to rapid urbanization and environmental change. Instead of romanticizing landscapes, his photos presented suburban expansion with a neutral, detached perspective. This image shows the tension between natural landscapes (the distant mountains) and human development (tract housing and roads), highlighting the spread of suburbanization in the American West.

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Conceptual (Ideas & Meanings in Photography)

This photograph challenges traditional landscape photography by portraying the human-altered environment rather than untouched nature. Adams doesn’t dramatize the scene; instead, he presents suburban sprawl as mundane yet thought-provoking. The image invites viewers to reflect on progress vs. loss, raising questions about how human expansion reshapes nature. The placement of the mountains in the background suggests an underlying contrast what the land once was vs. what it has become.

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Visual (Composition & Aesthetic Aspects)

Framing & Depth: Adams uses a straightforward, almost clinical framing with a balanced composition. The houses and streets lead the eye toward the mountains, subtly reinforcing the idea of encroachment.

Lighting & Tone: The use of black and white removes any romanticized colour, making the scene appear stark and factual. The tonal contrast between the light-coloured homes and the darker roads creates structure in the composition.

Repetition & Patterns: The uniformity of the houses and roads emphasizes suburban monotony and the lack of uniqueness in modern development.

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Textual (Photography & Language/Representation)

Absence of People: By not including human subjects, Adams shifts focus to the environment itself, letting the landscape tell the story of human impact.

Title as Context: “Colorado Springs, Colorado” is direct and unembellished, reinforcing Adams’ documentary approach. The neutrality of the title reflects the movement’s goal of avoiding subjective emotional influence.

Photographic Language: The image’s restrained, observational tone aligns with the New Topographics philosophy describing rather than judging.

Joint Analysis

Stephen Shore, Beverly Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, June 21, 1975, chromogenic colour print

Visual

The line across the horizon, squashed compressed loads of negative space in the top of the image

Technical

Clear sky no clouds, cold lighting, hard edged distinct shadows

Contextual

8 cars 4 pumps and 3 gas stations this photos about the cars and roads connecting places back together all about petrol cars and oil damaging the environment. sense of nationalism red white and blue colours same as the American flag.

Conceptual

The road leads back to the mountains and open air. leaving the squashed ruined land and going back to the beautiful open sky of California.

New Topographies: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape” was a ground-breaking exhibition of contemporary landscape photography held at the George Eastman House’s International Museum of Photography (Rochester, New York) from October 1975 to February 1976.

Their photographs depicted the built environment, suburban sprawl, industrial structures, and the mundane aspects of daily life

The New Topographies photographers, including Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, and Stephen Shore, documented built and natural landscapes in America, often capturing the tension between natural scenery and the mundane structures of post-war America: parking lots, suburban homes, crumbling coal mines. The photographs, stark and documentary, are often devoid of human presence. Jenkins described the images as “neutral” in style, “reduced to an essentially topographic state, conveying substantial amounts of visual information but eschewing entirely the aspects of beauty, emotion, and opinion

What was the new topographies a reaction to?

Their stark, beautifully printed images of this mundane but oddly fascinating topography was both a reflection of the increasingly suburbanised world around them, and a reaction to the tyranny of idealised landscape photography that elevated the natural and the elemental.

Panoramic Landscapes + Joiner Landscapes –

best photo and edits –

final photos –

visual gallery –

Photoshoot Plan

For my photos, I decided to go to St Anne Port as there is a dynamic balance of rock, water and sky; the only three things I want to feature in my photographs. Inspired by Ansel Adams’ composition, I am going to shoot my photos with a shallow focus to include all elements of the landscape in view while making the large and intimidating rocks a focal point. This allows for elements of the sublime to continue to shine through into my pictures while having the influence of Ansel Adams still prominent in my work through the content in which I am focusing on. To emphasise this I am going to shoot my photos from a low angle, positioning myself on the ground and tilting my camera upwards to make the rocks appear larger and therefore more daunting. I will take these on a day which has prominent clouds in the sky to overall make the image more interesting, especially when it comes to editing.

Contact sheet

HDR Edits

In Photoshop Lightroom, I selected a few of my best images that featured the yellow aspects of the rocks and edited them to appear as HDR photos. I choose these pictures specifically because I wanted to really bring out the vibrancy and beauty of the natural elements of coastal landscapes. These edits helped to extenuate the colours of these photographs, bringing out the contrast between the blue sky and sea and the tense rocks. By toggling with the effects in the SDR Display setting, I was able to find a perfect balance in my photos where the highlights in the waves and clouds had great clarity while not removing depth from the shadows in the foreground. These effects were overall complementary with my work due to the colours and texture of my photographs being heightened to a level that allows for definition to really shine through.

Developing

Final Photos and Edits

When choosing my final pictures, I considered ones which looked the most like something that would come out of Ansel Adams’ work and finally edited them in black and white to make them appear as a collection while also furthering visuals that highlight my inspiration and intended goal. I edited my pictures with Adams’ technique of the Zone System in mind where he includes a tonal scale of 0-10 in his photographs; including areas where the brightest whites can be seen as well as deep blacks. I made a specific effort to incorporate all these tones in my final pictures and I guaranteed this by increasing levels of highlights and shadows as well as contrast when editing. With this in consideration, I still ensured that I would not lose clarity and texture in the focal points during this process in order to maintain detail seen within nature.

Exposure Compensation:

This is just a way to tweak how bright or dark your photo turns out. Your camera tries to find the “perfect” exposure, but it doesn’t always get it right. If your photo’s too dark or too bright, you can use exposure compensation to fix it.

Minus (-) makes it darker.

Plus (+) makes it brighter.

Exposure Bracketing:

This is when you take several shots of the same thing, but with different brightness levels. The idea is to make sure one of them is perfect. It’s useful if you’re in tricky lighting, like a scene with both bright lights and dark shadows.

For example, you might take:

One that’s a bit brighter.

One regular shot.

One that’s a bit darker.

HDR photos:

How to use it:

HDR modes can usually be found in the settings of most cameras, in which it gives you a variety of options to choose and tweak to how you want your photographs to be.

On the camera screen you are also able to choose High speed continuous photos, this makes it so the 3 photos needed for HDR (low exposure, medium exposure, high exposure) are taken in a fraction of a second, this makes it so if there is any movement in the camera, there wont be any differences in the photos besides how dark or light they are. This will overall make it alot easier to obtain the HDR photo you are looking for as you wont need a tripod or anything to stabilise the camera.

HDR is a trick where you combine multiple shots with different exposures to get a photo with more detail in both the bright and dark areas. It’s like using the best parts of each shot to make the final one look more interesting.

So, if you’re taking a picture of a sunset or something with a lot of contrast, HDR can help you show both the sky and the shadows in detail.

My own photos:

These are the before and after of my photos regarding HDR photos in which there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference but it is quite hard to replicate the HDR without taking multiple photos of the same shot but with different exposure, so using photoshop doesn’t correlate with the same type of quality if i were to do it properly.