It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these types of blog posts. Those of you who have read a lot of my blog posts here know that I like taking photos and use Windows Live Photo Gallery to manage all the photos I take. If you haven’t already done so, you should check out Windows Live Photo Gallery – part of Windows Live Essentials 2011 – by downloading it here. Photo Gallery has several really awesome features worth taking a look at. There’s Photo Fuse which helps you create the perfect photo. Photo Gallery also has a feature called people tagging where you can tag people in your photos. I’ve gone through almost 11 years of digital photos and tagged family and friends – making it easier for me to look through photos with certain people in them like my mom or dad. I might dive more into these features in future blog posts but today I wanted to remind people of Photo Gallery’s panoramic stitching feature. Photo Gallery makes it easy for you to take a group of photos you’ve taken and “stitch” them together to create a panoramic shot. You can learn how to create panoramic stitches here. Over the course of the last few years, courtesy of Photo Gallery, I’ve created a lot of panoramic shots. I thought I’d pull a bunch of those shots together into a single “greatest hits” post that might serve as motivation for some of you to go out and create your own panoramic shots!
The first shot is one I created this last weekend after visiting Deception Pass on Whidbey Island here in Washington State.
For the following shot, I was with friends in March 2009 and we had just visited Snoqualmie Falls and were driving around. We stopped at the side of the road where I took several shots used to create this panoramic shot. I love how you can see where the snow level was and how the clouds were partially covering these foothills of the Cascades.
The shot below is from the deck of the U.S.S. Hornet looking toward San Francisco from September 2009.
In May 2009 I created the following shot overlooking the I-90 bridge over Lake Washington. As you can see, it was a beautiful day. We occasionally have them here in Seattle (like today!).
Mt. St. Helens – what more need I say?
The following shot is one of Lake Wenatchee at dusk. When I was here – everything was very still and quiet. This shot I think reflects that. This was taken in late March. The snow was just melting away.
A couple of weekends ago, I headed up into the Cascades and took some photos that created this shot of a half-frozen Keechelus Lake just outside Snoqualmie Pass.
This panoramic shot was created from photos I took while departing on a ferry. A typical grey afternoon in Seattle.
In 2008, my friend and I took a road trip for Spring Break where we went out and explored eastern Washington State. The below shot is of the Grand Coulee Dam. Ironically (and unfortunately) the one day we were there was the one day they weren’t doing any tours due to maintenance. So… I’m planning a return trip soon!
Part of that same trip is this shot I created of Dry Falls. At one time, this was one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. You can read about Dry Falls here. Such an amazing sight!
The following is one of my favorite panoramic shots. There was something absolutely surreal being out in the middle of nowhere with no sign of civilization anywhere other than the single road. This was on the way to Dry Falls and the Grand Coulee Dam.
The following is a shot I created of a view of Seattle from the Space Needle.
Panoramic shots don’t always have to be of some sort of landscape scene. It can be used almost anything. The following shot is a stich of a my Enterprises I had sitting on top of my bookshelves in my office at home. My NX-01 is missing from this shot.
All these shots were uploaded to my Flickr account via Windows Live Photo Gallery – which supports sharing to services such as SkyDrive, Facebook, Flickr, and others.
I hope you enjoyed the shots! If you’ve created your own panoramic shots with Windows Live Photo Gallery, upload them and share a link in the comments below! We’d love to see some of your panoramic shots.