Chapter 3. Studio 03: Frenzy at Almanarre Beach

Albert Lemoine

The problem with rotating panoramic cameras is that they always pan across a scene the same way, warping perspective the same way from one shot to the next. If you want to introduce variations, you have to create your panoramas by assembly; high-end software will make the montage easier. At Almanarre Beach, however, parts of the scene—the waves and the reflections on the water, for example—were changing too quickly. Stitching the photographs together automatically would have been impossible. So I did the job by hand to preserve the quality of textures and the integrity of shapes, right down to their smallest details.

Hardware used

• Nikon FM2 film camera

• 35mm lens

• PC with Althon 1800+ processor and 1.5 GB RAM

• 19- and 22-in. Mitsubishi monitors

Software used

• Photoshop 7

Bending the horizon of a panoramic landscape is an easy way to make it look interesting. Without it, this scene of Almanarre Beach on the French Riviera's Giens Peninsula would look pretty dull. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the light was even, unrelieved by any backlighting. You couldn't even see the shoreline because I had to stand in the water to get close to my subject. The only major compositional element was the horizon, under the straight line of the sky. Unless I curved the horizon, it would be hard to make it a compelling part of the picture!

Curving space produces a distinctive "fisheye" look, but without the drawbacks. The pictures that make up this panorama were shot with a 35mm lens, so they don't show too much distortion or oversized foregrounds. I wanted to focus on my real subjects—the windsurfers on the water and the "flying surfers" (the paragliders) in the air—and create a visual balance by devoting large areas to the sails and the kites.

Montage

Retouching

Final image

All landscapes are imaginary,

all panoramic landscapes even more so.