Twisting a Golden Panorama

If there's one Northern California iconic landmark that's been over-photographed, it's the Golden Gate Bridge. So last year, when we visited the place once again, I was seriously tempted to just leave the camera in the car. I mean, why even try being creative when every square inch has been shot from every conceivable angle? But there were family shots to take, so along went the camera.

As many times as one has been on the bridge, it never does actually become old. So as we were standing there on the south pier, I just allowed the size and age of the structure to envelop me. The walkway along the side of the bridge actually goes out and around the massive piers, clinging to the side of the steel, high over the water. It was dizzying.

And as I stood there, taking it all in, I started to wonder if there was a way to shoot it and capture it all in one image, or at least one panorama. Now I've shot a lot of panoramas in my time, even back in the days of film where I had to tape a whole bunch of prints together before framing them. Of course, the stitching capabilities of today's Photoshop makes it a lot easier. There have been a number of panoramic images of the bridge shot and offered to tourists...I know, because I saw them in the gift shop before I walked out on the span. But how do you shoot a panorama of an object while you're actually on the object itself? How do you capture the length and the height of an object in a pan?

Then it struck me...I'd fallen into the typical trap of thinking two-dimensionally. Pans are usually shot in a horizontal fashion, with the camera being turned in a horizontal circle about the photographer. But what if I panned the other way, starting with the view at one end, arching up directly overhead, and ending with the view at the other end? So I did. Stitched together, this is how it looked in its raw form:

Taking this, then, and bending it into an arch so that both ends were right-side-up, was a simple task with the warp tool in Photoshop.

It was fun to do...and was the only "keeper" of my images from the bridge that day, and it certainly was different from all the other images offered as posters and postcards, so my primary objective was achieved. And I was reminded to break from the habit of thinking only two-dimensionally. Does the image work for you? Let me know why or why not!