Panobook 2012 Review

PANOBOOK 2012 Award-Winning Panoramic Photographs is a compendium of the best 150 panoramic images of the year. This year's issue sports photographs chosen among the works of 826 amateur and professional photographers from around the world who entered Kolor's annual panoramic photography competition.

From more than 1600 submissions, a panel of three renowned specialists selected five winners plus 145 finalists for inclusion in PANOBOOK 2012. From majestic mountain ranges to frozen caves, from pipelines to space rockets, a variety of beautiful, surreal and surprising subjects are beautifully showcased. There are horizontal panoramas, vertical panoramas and spherical panoramas, each unique and inspiring. Every image in the book is a prime example of excellent technical execution, artistry and hard work.

Published by Dpunkt and Rocky Nook, this 240-paged book is a wealth of visual inspiration both for photography lovers and anyone who wants to see the world unfolded before them though the unusual perspective of panoramic images.

PANOBOOK 2012 Award-Winning Panoramic Photographs is available for purchase from Amazon.

PANOBOOK 2012 Award-Winning Panoramic Photographs is a hardcover wide-aspect book with text repeated in three languages: English, French and German.

The first pages of the book include a presentation from Kolor, the creators of specialized panorama software, including Autopano Giga & Pro to stitch images and Panotour to produce virtual tours. This presentation covers their annual panorama photography competition in detail as well.

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After the short introduction, the specialists who selected the images for this book are presented. This year's panel judging includes Christian Block, a visual effects artist who creates photo-realistic images for television shows such as Star Trek, Lost and NCIS among others; Ignacio Ferrando, founder of Abaco Digital that specializes in panoramic and spherical photography and Uwe Steinmuller, photographer and expert author on high-end digital photography.

The next nine sections contain 145 panorama photos, organized around some broad themes: mountain, sky, architecture, city, interiors, water, entertainment, landscape and imaginary. Within each section, panoramas use a variety of techniques. from simple stitching to unusual projections and HDR composites. Images are presented over a gray background, spread over one or two facing pages depending on aspect ratio.

At the end of each section there is an index with information on the pictures therein: Author, location, equipment, exposure and number of images used are often given. These notes give the photographers view about their own images, be it about the place, the significance of the time or event, or what it took to produce their works.

PANOBOOK 2012 is an inspiration to go and make more panorama photos of the world around you. It does not teach how to make panorama photos but gives 150 compelling reasons to learn panorama photography.