Hans Nyberg of www.panoramas.dk sets the bar higher every passing year with his magnificent collection of New Year’s Eve panoramas shot by various photographers from around the globe. This past New Year’s he outdid himself with his New Year’s Eve Countdown, featuring a new holiday-themed panorama a day for each of the eight days leading up to New Years, from Christmas in Baltimore and Moscow’s Red Square to the Berlin Ice House and Testing the Ball Drop at Times Square.
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Somehow, Nyberg managed to convince photographers from all over the globe to head out on the evening of December 31, 2005 and shoot a fullscreen panorama of their local celebrations. Actually, it probably wasn’t all that difficult as panographers (panoramic photographers) are an enthusiastic and indefatigable lot in a league of their own, one that is not often known to pass up on a great chance to capture a memorable moment.
For ‘Happy New Year 2006’, Nyberg worked 28 hours, with only three hours off for sleep, to get them all online as they rolled in from various time zones. His efforts paid off with close to 800,000 visitors this January, and he set a one day record on January 2, 2006 with over 85,000 visits. By far the most popular panorama was Jook Leung’s Times Square.
Arguably, the most famous New Year’s Eve event is the one held in Times Square, New York. This past year it attracted more than 700,000 revelers who came out to see Mariah Carey perform live in ABC’s Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Veteran panographer Jook Leung, whose New Year’s Times Square panoramas have become famous, was there to capture it for the fourth year in a row.
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click here to view fullscreen
Switzerland was in party mode with an open-air party at a church square in ZERMATT, traditional fireworks in ZURICH, and the SB-Jam Snowboard event in DAVOS.
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click here to view fullscreen
click here to view fullscreen
Asia was represented with 400,000 celebrating in the Sinyi District in TAIPEI and temples all over TOKYO and Japan, where “watch-night” bells are struck 108 times at all the temples, representing the Buddhist belief that it will rid humans of their 108 worldly desires.
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click here to view fullscreen
Twenty thousand congregated on the Dam in AMSTERDAM, Slovenian pop signers and bands played in Congress square in LJUBLJANA and LONDON’s famous Ferris wheel attracted a large crowd.
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click here to view fullscreen
click here to view fullscreen
Around the United States, the Historic Fox Theatre held a grand reopening in downtown TUSCON after 30 years, ASPEN crowds gathered at the corner of Cooper and Galena, and MINNEAPOLIS launched fireworks over the Mississippi River.
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click here to view fullscreen
click here to view fullscreen
Elsewhere in the world, SYDNEY’s justifiably famous fireworks display at Sydney Harbour attracted huge crowds, as always, and RIO DE JANEIRO’s Copacabana Beach, famous for its Reveillon, saw 2.3 million people gazing skyward at the 25-ton fireworks display.
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click here to view fullscreen
So, if you’re NOT one of the hundreds of thousands who have already visited panoramas.dk to celebrate, it’s not too late to enjoy the show.
