In Awe of the Hermitage
St. Petersburg is the center of the arts in Russia and fittingly, the grandest and largest art museum, the Hermitage, is located here. I have recorded my impression on the Hermitage here.
Hermitage is a collection of a bunch of buildings and is massive in scale. Photographing architecture is non trivial and I usually don’t attempt them either. But the impressive structure of the Hermitage made me pause. The challenge to capture the immense structure egged me to click away. But I had to be careful what I shoot and how I shoot it. I quickly thought about it, the obvious solution is to shoot a panorama. The light was good (about mid noon) and I had a lens that shoots normal (40mm equivalent). I had to shoot from a distance (of course) and I had enough space as the square was large and due to the winter weather there was no crowd either.
I parked myself in the center of the square, adjusted my stance to the center of the building and shot two sequences of 8 shots each (all handheld). I had to check to see if I had captured the exposure and the framing right. Luckily, the lighting did not change (I shot manual exp of course) due to the overcast skies.
The trouble I realized was that, even though I will get the entire building framed in the panorama, I am going to suffer strange optical distortions. You can observe the building tapering at the far end. I guess I need more rigorous technique to shoot panoramas but I will take what I have.
It is not perfect, but a lot of details and the scale is captured in one image. I have to resort to using deep zoom again for displaying the content. Enjoy the imagery.
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March 9th, 2010 11:24
Well, it is still a good introductory picture (Winter Palace) to the biggest musesum. Now I can’t wait to check out the 3 million collections one day…
March 9th, 2010 16:15
For a art dummy like me, the collection was mind blowing. Looking at a Rembrandt, Da Vinci or a Monet from inches away is a crazy experience. I can just wonder how crazy one would feel if they actually studied Art and art history. I guess it is like a pilgrimage.
I hope you really get to go some day. It is well worth making the trip and paying the entrance fee.