London in Widescreen, Panoramas.
2002
2003
2004
Sometimes I feel cursed. I've been up the Monument many times in the past and it's always been bad weather as if a rain cloud follows me around.
Not this time, the weather was crap until I started climbing the stairs and then the sun came out and a good sky awoke.
If you fancy climbing the 300 steps of Wren's doric column then it's an excellent view, completely uninterrupted of the whole of the City in a most intimate way possible as you look directly down Gracechruch Street.
You can see everything there, from St Paul's to the London Eye to Canary Wharf.
If it's winter though you might want to dress up warm, it gets rather chilly up there, and if you dont like heights or claustraphobia forget it, but if you feel brave go for it!		   The point of this page is to try and document the changing skyline. I'm sure between 2002 and 2007 the results will be striking.
With the ever expanding panorama's this site offers you can now take a look at the evolution of the London sky-line throughout the last couple of years by clicking on the year above and then browsing chronologically.
We aim on taking more in 2004 just like we had in 2002, 2003 was a bit of a lean year pano-wise and for some odd reason not many were taken.
If you want to use them please contact the email address at the top of the page.

London Skyline from Monument
This view is from the famous London skyline from Monument as the sun starts to set. Probably the only few months for a long time we will see this view without construction cranes. November 2004.
Original picture size - 6195 x 1630 Larger version available here

This vertical panorama of Canary Wharf was a real tough one to take.
Whenever youre doing a picture of the Wharf the tops of the skyscrapers are always much brighter than the rest of the exposure so you have to do multiple exposures and then montage it together.
The top half was taken with a tripod, because of the long shutter speeds needed to get the light of the buildings brought into play properly and then do shorter exposures to take care of the brighter areas of the picture.
The bottom half with the reflections was taken handheld so that the reflections would appear as sharp as possible in the finished piece.
It was this that was improvised on the fly as the effect of longer tripod exposures is to make the water morph into itself and one smooth mass.
The images were then joined together in photoshop to provide what you see here.
With the montaging of a vertical panorama part of the trick is that the towers being so tall suffer from perspective so not only do you have to paste the picture together but you also have to correct the perspective from the top and the bottom so it matches up properly with what is in the middle of the picture. It is a very basic example of what is called 'rectified photography' that the architects and surveyors will tell you about.
If you like the challenge and you're capable of using photoshop its good fun.
A vertical panorama looking across Heron Quays Dock and reflections on the water in Canary Wharf towards the center of the cluster. Six skyscrapers are in view (just!) November 2004.
Original picture size - 1714 x 3031 Larger version available here


The view from Waterloo is probably the best one to be seeing the City of London from, the presence of the Thames and the lights of the reflections make it work completely. November 2004.
Original picture size - 4481 x 1686 Larger version available here