The focus of the exhibition at the «Forum of Swiss History» in Schwyz, Switzerland is the changing perception of alpine photographs – from the Daguerrotype to the full 360 degree digital panoramic projection. Panoramic photographs changed the view of Swiss mountain ranges forever: Swiss mountains became well-known all over the world.
Emil Ganz: Lake of Maerjelen, near the Aletsch glacierBut, what is a panorama? Today the word “panorama” is used in many different meanings: from an image with a wide angle, a panoramic view of mountains, to a drawing of a city or landscape used in cartography. The word “panorama” goes back to a patent by the British painter Robert Barker, who patented in 1787 the first building for panoramic paintings. In the 19th century these paintings became a mass media and booming industry. Panoramic museums were built all across the globe and panoramic paintings of battle scenes or far landscapes enjoyed great popularity. After the invention of cinema these museums disappeared quickly, today only a few are left.
The exhibition shows a historical timeline of the development in panoramic photography beginning with the invention of the Megaskop camera of Friederich von Martens which made it possible, for the first time, to capture a panoramic view on a photograph. The popularisation started with [flexible] bendable film, when Eastman Kodak presented in 1900 in Paris the first panoramic camera with an angle of 112 degrees. Some highlights of the exhibition include the works of the pioneer Adolphe Braun (1812–1877), who used the Johnson rotation camera to capture the Swiss mountains in an angle of 130 degrees and photographs of other Swiss photographers such as Emil Ganz (1879–1962) and Emil Schulthess (1913–1996).Schulthess shot some of the first aerial panoramas and is well-known for his panorama “Top of Switzerland”, which covers the view on top of the Dufourspitze, the highest point of Switzerland. This panorama was realised in 1978 for the world exhibition in Tokyo and was sold around 7 million times all over the world.
In the centre of the exhibition is a rotunda: a cylindrical building of 8.5 meters in diameter, which ties up to the tradition of panoramic paintings. The visitor has the feeling of flying from mountain summit to mountain summit all across Switzerland. Our goal was to bring back the fascination and experience of panoramic paintings to the present time.
Matthias Taugwalder: 360° panorama from the Dufourspitze, 4634mFor this project I shot fifteen high-resolution panoramas on different locations in Switzerland: from tourist viewpoints, which can be reached easily by cable-car, up six mountains over 4000 meters, such as the summits of Matterhorn (4478m) and Dufourspitze (4634m), which required ascents of up to 8 hours. Each panorama consists of up to 300 single images per panorama, shot with a Nikon D200 camera and a 50mm lens. The resulting full spherical panoramas have a resolution of around 53000 pixels in width, which gives around 1.4 gigapixels.
The images are projected as a cylindrical image through a digital projection system, which was realised by the Swiss company Softedge productions, a specialist in the field of panoramic and multi-image projection systems. Eight projectors project a seamless 360 degree image.
Inside the cylinder there are binoculars available for the visitors. These binoculars, however, have a sensor which registers every move of the head and shows the projected image with additional information such as the names and altitudes of the mountains. They are modified with Emagin Z800 3D Visor goggles and the projection software is a customized version of SPi-V, created by Aldo Hoeben. His consulting helped us to bring the experience back into the centre.
“These panoramic views are so beautiful, that one can get teary-eyed as the people in 1894 when they saw panoramic paintings.”
Tagesanzeiger, August 4th, 2007.
The exhibition has received a very broad and positive media feedback. The reactions prove that alpine panoramas are still a mass media and attract many different people such as mountaineers, photographers or nature enthusiasts.
The exhibition was opened on August 4th, 2007 and lasts until February 3rd, 2008 at the Forum of Swiss history in Schwyz, Switzerland.
click here to view 360 degree panoramas of the exhibitionclick here to view the video presentation of the project
by Matthias at the Panotools meeting 2007 in LucerneThe Forum of Swiss History is located in Schwyz, the central Swiss base of Swiss National Museums, and depicts the everyday life of the Swiss Confederates, from the wars of liberation fought by the three original cantons around 1300 to the end of the ancient régime in 1800. Numerous temporary exhibitions and a diverse range of events complement the exhibition and link it to its immediate surroundings, the Swiss interior.
Matthias Taugwalder (1981) grew up in Zermatt/Switzerland. After his studies in Business Informatics at the University of Zurich he now works and lives in Zurich. His company Concept360 provides internet services and panoramic photography, with a special focus on alpine panoramic photography and high-resolution gigapixel panoramas. Some panoramas of the region around Zermatt can be found at http://www.zermatt360.ch/en.
Links:
Background information about the project and media feedback: concept360.ch
Email: info at concept360.ch
Alpenpanoramen Official exhibition web page
Alpenpanoramen at Swiss National Museums
Video presentation of the project by Matthias at the Panotools meeting 2007 in Lucerne
360 degree panoramas of the exhibition
Related article in this issue:
2007 PANOTOOLS MEETING IN LUCERNE SWITZERLAND
