Aerial Panorama at Aterro do Flamengo over Estácio de Sá Monument

This place reminds me when I was a child and used to go there with my parents to ride my bike and play with our dogs. The “Aterro do Flamengo” has been built with many successive embankments over the Guanabara bay since the beginning of the XX century until late 50’s. It is today a big leisure area with many different spaces, monuments, a museum, a marina and a freeway that connects downtown to the south zone of the city.

It is a little strange sometimes to imagine that this part of the city, that for me has always been there, once didn’t exist and has been created by men over the bay. I’ve already done other 360º pictures there, at the Monumento aos Pracinhas, Maman sculpture, that was exposed close to the Modern Art Museum (MAM) and at the statue of Marechal Deodoro, creator of the Brazilian Republic .

This picture has been shot over the Estácio de Sá monument, an obelisk, called pyramid by some, that nowadays hosts some photography exhibitions in it’s underground.  Estácio de Sá has been a Portuguese military, founder of the city of Rio de Janeiro. Cousin of Salvador Correia de Sá and nephew of Mem de Sá, other important people from the Brazilian history, he came to the city of Salvador, in Bahia, in 1563, with the mission to expel definitely the remaining French at the Guanabara bay and found here a new city. In 1565, after accomplish his duty, he finally founded the city of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro, our Wonderful City!

At this picture I tried to play a little, shooting in the morning and then in the late afternoon. It is possible to change the panorama whenever you want by clicking at the Sugar Loaf or Corcovado icons, and you will see the sun mooving from one to the other, going to it’s corresponding position in the morning and afternoon.

As the places has many many beautiful scenes I decided, once more, to put an image album over the immersive picture, giving the user a chance to know a little bit more from the place.

Aterro do Flamengo
Aterro do Flamengo

Technical Datasheet

This is a place I wanted to shoot since a long time ago. I went there in the morning, but not too early. Maybe if I went earlier the sky color would be better, more yellow or orange, but I’m not sure if the gopro would perform well with less light, I still need to test it. Until now I prefer the aerial pictures shot in the middle of the day, this way the sun is higher and the light gets uniform in all directions, not giving me the problem of the big white sky with the sun closer to the horizon. After stitching the morning picture I thought about coming back at the end of the day to make another. My initial idea was to make one only panorama mixing the two images, getting from the afternoon one only the part of the Sugar Loaf mountain, but after trying this I decided to put both panoramas separated in a tour.

The positioning between the two didn’t get so good, but the problem was the different highs from the shootings that changed very much the overall perspective, making it impossible.

Cheers, Cartola!

360º Picture at Cerro Santa Lucía, Santiago del Chile, July/2013

This is a very interesting destiny for the tourist that visits Santiago del Chile. A small hill with almost 230 feet (70m) in the middle of the city, Cerro Santa Lucía provides a beautiful panoramic view. Nothing better to register than an immersive picture. The architecture of the place is also amazing, the kids played like if they were in a castle. After climbing the stairs the reward is the magnificent view of Santiago, with an astonishing blue sky with the Andes behind.

During the climbing there are many good places to take a picture, so I decided to share other images over the panorama in a gallery. Hope you enjoy.

Vista de Santiago, Chile, no Mirante Santa Lucia
Santiago del Chile, panoramic view from Cerro Santa Lucía

Technical Datasheet:

As I shot hand held with my arm up I decided to put the lens at 8mm instead of my preferred 15mm. This made the stitching easier with only 4 horizontal images, but reduced the zoom possibility. I had also to clone some floor to remove myself from the nadir.

Cheers, Cartola.

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