Oxford in Orange

One thing I could use this blog for is to draw attention to some particular photographs, from time to time. One of my most popular panoramas of Oxford features the dreaming spires beneath a bright orange sunset. I thought I'd tell a little about how that was made.
The distinctive thing about this picture is the radical dynamic range between the brightest part of the sky and the darkest part of the town. Ordinarily, this would be far beyond the capacity of standard cameras to resolve--though our eyes, capable of seeing a far greater range of shades, have less difficulty. To recreate that natural and balanced look, without losing either the highlights or the shadows, requires a special technique, which has become quite popular in recent years, whereby you take one exposure for the shadows, one for the mid-tones, and one for the highlights, then recombine them on the computer. But bear in mind that this is already a panoramic picture, composed of a number of pictures stitched together horizontally. Moreover, the sun is very low in the sky here, and moving fast. So I basically had to take about 27 photos (9x3) to get this one picture at the outset, and that fast enough to ensure there were no significant changes in light and colour between the first and the last. Then there's the job of putting all these together, ensuring that exactly the right blend applies across the board. Altogether I think this was probably the most complicated of my panoramas (with one exception, which I will write about at a later date). Anyway, you can click on the above image, or here, to see this panoramic picture of the dreaming spires, available as an art print from my gallery.