The whole of my side of Salford experienced a power-cut on Tuesday night. I’ve not been in one of those since I was a little kid – it was quite exciting! I quickly got over the brief annoyance that it had just killed my computer half way through an installation of Windoze and ran out into the foyer of my building. So did everyone else.
All of the security doors popped open, as they were just held open by magnets, nothing more. Take the electricity away and “click” – you can go anywhere. So I did! I grabbed my camera and my tripod and headed for the roof. I knew the opportunity would come along sooner or later if I was patient.
I love being in high places – Master of all I survey, if only for a brief moment. It was breath-taking. Literally. The wind was blowing a gale so I coudn’t go too close to the edge. The skies were beautiful and walking around the top of the building you could see the whole of both cities, on whose junction I was perched.
Carefully, I worked out the exposure required and took about thirty pictures as consistently as possible, equally spaced around the top of the building. I took a few arty ones for good measure, and then sped back down to my apartment to view the fruits of my illicit snapping.
It was good! The pics, taken on my digi-SLR, were at super-high resolution. I’d chosen a long exposure on a sturdy tripod so the low light-levels still gave a clear picture, with some unusual effects. Painstakingly using Photoshop I stitched the panorama together and got it almost perfect. (You could have got better with a proper panoramic lens but I don’t have that kind of kit.)
Below is a link to a cut-down version of the panorama, which you can see a thumbnail of at the top of this blog. Very cut-down – the final TIF file is 150Mb. I intend to get this printed out for my wall. I think it will go up to 22ft long and still look very detailed. And I know just where to get it done! I couldn’t embed the picture in here due to its strange dimentions. Zoom in and pan for best effect.
If you like a lot, let me know and I might give you a copy.
Manchester Panorama from Abito Rooftop
dude that’s awesome, nice work. I’d love to see the 22ft version. Where abouts in Salford where you, I don’t think we suffered over my bit.
hi there, i recently came across this image by the way of google, and its pretty damn awesome.
i was wondering if i could somehow get the full image as i am currently working on a HD music video for university, about street art and manchester
in general, and this would look brilliant if i could zoom and pan it in the footage, ill give you full credit in the final video.
cheers
marc
Hi,
I love the panoramic and the Manchester wheel picture. I’d love to buy one or both and I was wondering if you could tell me how I could go about it.
Cheers
Karen
Hi Guys,
I used to have the central section of this image (the City Centre part) on sale on big canvases at Transform Your Images in the Arndale. They recently went bust and so it’s no longer easily available.
The full panorama image has never been on general sale, as it is rather specialised, and few people actually wanted it, so it wasn’t worth getting many done. As it stands, there are only three copies in existance. One of them is at the Horse and Jockey in Chorlton Green, and the others are on the walls of two of my friends. (I don’t even have a copy myself! LOL.)
When I get the chance and funds, I’ll get a few more of these made, if there is a demand – but they’re fairly exclusive pieces.
I took the photos from the top of Abito, near to the Renault Garage.
@ Marc – I don’t really wish to release the image to someone I don’t know. It’s something of potential commercial value and if I give it out, there is a chance it will fall into the wrong hands, and then I lose that potential revenue. My apologies.
Pete.