January 2009 – Page 8 – { feuilleton }

Bruges panoramas

Do you detect a theme here? The 360º Cities site which I linked to yesterday won’t be news to some since its panorama views are now incorporated into Google Earth. I hadn’t fully investigated it before, however, so I wasted some time today wandering the streets of Bruges almost as you would in a computer game thanks to the way the different panoramas are linked. Clicking the arrows or the thumbnail views means you’re immediately transported to the next location. (Needless to say this works best using the full screen option on a large monitor.) The photographs in this instance are by Robin de Baere.

Bruges is another of those waterlogged places with cobbled streets which so beguile me, hence the choice of a Belgian town over more obvious European locations. The light skies in the night shots—a result of long exposures—lend the empty streets some of the same mysterious atmosphere captured by René Magritte in his Empire of Light series. Magritte was Belgian, of course, so it’s rather fitting, as was Paul Delvaux, another painter of noctural mystery.

Empire of Light by René Magritte (1953–54).

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Bruges-la-Morte
• Taxandria, or Raoul Servais meets Paul Delvaux

Paris panoramas

Looking at panoramas of Venice yesterday reminded me of this panorama of my own which I pieced together after a trip to Paris two years ago. (See the very long version unsqueezed here.) The location was the small park at the point of the Île de la Cité where the Seine divides in two.

For some fully 360º panoramas of Paris there are plenty to choose from here, including a view from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The panoramas archive

Venice panoramas

Piazza San Marco.

Gilles Vidal‘s 360º panoramas are justly celebrated but some of his photos benefit more from the location than others. The cathedral of St Cecilia is a great example of this, as is the city of Venice in this remarkable series of views. As well as showing a few less obvious locations, Vidal shows some of the more familiar sights in night views which are still fascinating due to the high quality of the pictures. The view of a misty Piazza San Marco (above) is wonderfully atmospheric.