Analogue Panoramic Pictures with a Rolleiflex Camera – by Christopher Schwer
“As I traveled with my camera I came to realize that often one picture could not capture all of the emotion that had moved me to photograph. Many of the elements in the landscape that had created that emotion were outside the view of a single square picture. I needed a way to take it all in.
Constructing panoramic images from sequential frames allows the presentation of the landscape in a grand yet intimate style, without the jarring perspective usually associated with wide-angle imagery. In using a lens of normal focal length, a familiar context and perspective are created. Within that context, the language of light, surface, depth and texture can most effectively be expressed across a wide visual expanse.
What overwhelms me still is how small we are in relation to the landscape yet how much control we manage to exert over it. We create magnificent national parks to cherish the landscape yet we remove entire mountaintops, devastating the environment in search of energy, never realizing that we are part of the landscape and inseparable from it.”
Excerpt from a 2011 Artist’s Statement
