Rotated to fit; see full-size image here, via AirPano.com
The Internet is abuzz over a photograph of New York's Central Park, for which Sergey Semonov received first prize in the amateur category of the Epson International Photographic Pano Awards. It turns out that he's been honing his craft with group of fellow photo enthusiasts for several years now: AirPano is a noncommercial enterprise that hopes to share the wonders of the world (literally, at times) through the art of high resolution aerial panoramas. The eight team members—who have backgrounds in everything from civil engineering to medical cybernetics—travel the world, shooting major cities, landmarks and other sites of interest, usually from a helicopter (but, as they note, "at times we use light jets, dirigibles, hot air balloons and radio-controlled helicopters").
Full screen or nothin':
Right-click to see other views
The AirPano website features "over 700 panoramas showing over 120 amazing locations of all continents including Antarctic and the North Pole"; panoramas from some 50 other locations are in the works. The large-ish files take a while to load—I've only had time to enjoy just a few of them so far—so let's just say it's a good way to kill time if it's a slow day at work. If you're short on bandwidth, you can peruse their gallery of intensely lush stills. The Escher-esque shot below was several years in the making.
Source: AirPano.com
Another pano after the jump—they have sound on autoplay so heads up:
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