Cathedral of Girona I, a photo from Girona, Catalogne

Photographer's Note

Tomorrow is Sunday, so it goes another church.

About the church:

This is the South face of the cathedral of Girona. Most of the actual building is Gothic and dates from th 14th and 15th centuries, when the existing Romanesque cathedral built in the early 11th century underwent a major renovation. The cloister and the tower are still from the 11th century. The Romanesque church replaced the existing mosque (Muslim Moors occupied the city for most of the 8th century and on several occasions after that until 1015). In turn, that mosque occupied the place of an older church - the first see of Girona was erected here in 247. There were other construction works, namely of the main façade, which is from the 18th century, and some stained glasses of the 20th century.

Its interior is quite unique because, contrarily to other large churches, it has only one nave, which is the widest Gothic nave in the world, with its 23 meters (75.4 ft), and the second widest nave in the world after St. Peter's in Rome, which is 25 meters (82 ft) wide. It also houses one of the few existing Romanesque rugs, known as the Tapís de la Creació (Tapestry of the Creation), which is actually an embroidery and not a tapestry. It was made probably in the 11th century and it was used as baldachin. It measures 3.65 by 4.7 meters (12 x 15.4 ft).

About the photo and PP:

This is a not so successful stitch of 5 shots. I call it unsuccessful not so much because I consider it so lousy, but because I was hoping that it turned out better, or at least less troublesome to produce, when I made the shots, because, contrarily to my bad habit of taking few shots that then reveal not being enough to compensate for the perspective corrections, I thought this time I had done plenty of shots (24). It's clear that I have still a long way to go until I manage well this stitching thing, at least in cases like this one, where more than two or three images are needed. I think I know what are my major mistakes, but I keep doing them: not using a much wider coverage than what I want to put in the final image and using too wide angles (short focal lengths). One could think that it is wise to use the widest angle possible to be able to cover more space with less shots, but the problem is that the perspective distortion is prone to be more problematic than the use of more images.

I think that this stitch produced with Hugin, a free specialised software which I like to think that I know reasonably well already, was as hard, if not harder to produce than this one I did more than a year ago completely "by hand", using 9 shots. The first problem was selecting which images to use - in this matter, quantity doesn't help, but it's safer to have more than needed than finding that something is missing. I started with 6 images, but no matter the adjustments I made (plenty of marking "common points", lines, crops, etc.), the stitch was much flawy. After many tries with other images, I finally ended up using only 5. You may wonder why 5 and not 4 or 6; well, four was almost enough, but the only way that the stitch came out well in the right part implied a hole in the sky and in the upper right corner of the church, so I had to add another piece of image just for that part. Even so, I had to use some cloning in some of the upper parts and in the interface between the tower and the wall above the door. I did all of this in three different occasions, not only because I got tired, but also because I gave up twice; then I thought that it didn't make sense giving up after all the work I had.

• WS#1 - 4 of the 5 images used in the stitch.

• WS#2 - Exterior view of the apse.

Link to all my posts of Girona: ***

Location (latitude, longitude): 41.9869,2.8261 (the link points to an interesting feature of Microsoft Maps / Live Search).

asajernigan, Docarmo, papagolf21, paura, feather, xuaxo, danos, Felip, sunamoon, Sistercosmo, shevchenko, gracious, parbo, JCG trouve(nt) cette note utile

Critiques | Translate

asajernigan (21427) 2009-01-10 17:42

Jose,
This is a nicely composed shot of this church. The stitch job is very nice here giving us a great view of the church. The lighting and colors are great with excellent sharpness and detail. The deep blue sky proivides excellent contrast for the building.
TFS,
Asa

Docarmo (9767) 2009-01-10 21:44

Olá José,
Que trabalho insano! Mas valeu a pena, o resultado está fabuloso! Incrível como conseguiste juntar todos aqueles fragmentos e obter esta imagem tão no prumo.
Parabéns!
MCV

papagolf21 (152599) 2009-01-11 0:47

Bonjour, Jose,
Magnifique prise de vue, la qualité de l'image est parfaite, toutes les subtilités architecturales de l'édifice religieux sont présentes à travers cette composition.
Félicitations pour l'assemblage des photos. Une réussite totale. L'ensemble ressort magnifiquement sur ce fond de ciel bleu.
Un grand merci pour la note d'accompagnement. Excellente journée.
Amitiés.
Philippe

rodgerg (55767) 2009-01-11 1:31

Olà José,

A very impressive church, a very good and nice view. Excellent framing and good use of light. The church arise very well in the beautiful blue sky. The coloured car gives an interesting idea of the scale of the church. Good and interesting photowork.
Amizades,
Roger

Gerrit (59968) 2009-01-11 2:28

Hi Jose,
Impressive simple architecture.
Good POV and excellent light.
Regards, GErrit

paura (25802) 2009-01-11 3:27

José,
Linda e bem tomada imagem, amigo. Penso que os ajustes da distorção da lente, se é que foram executados, ficaram muito bons. Noto um pequeno carro com (o cinza e vermelho) que ficou com aparência de mais largo do que me pareceria normal, mas nada de absurdo.

Abraço

Paulo

feather (51130) 2009-01-11 3:36

I don't know the program you use, but looking at the 4 shots you used they are all very distorted and I think you did an admirable job with your raw material. Maybe by the time the program straightened them the overlap wasn't enough. The linked one was bound to be easier because they were all in a straight line and the architecture was fairly simple. It might be worth having a word with Didi who does stitches of architecture all the time. I've seen him say it is easy. After all your struggles the result is good and I can't detect any warping anywhere.
Kath

xuaxo (6854) 2009-01-11 4:51

Olá José
Então quebraste a "regra" da Sunday Papagolfade, ou este domingo não podes? ;-)
Esta produção, incluindo workshops e nota, é um excelente contributo para quem queira dedicar-se a estes processamentos mais complicados.
Quanto ao resultado, bem, olhando assim de repente dá a impressão que a torre está aprumada demais em comparação com o resto. Não sei como dizer, dá a impressão que as duas partes não pertencem ao mesmo conjunto.
Mas esta apreciação é muito influenciada por saber como chegaste a esta imagem.
Em geral, acho que valeu a pena o esforço. Pode não ter saído precisamente como desejaste, mas está bem razoável.
A foto do WS#2 está muito interessante, com aquelas "dúzias" de colunas, superfícies de parede e gárgulas.
Bom domingo.
F.

danos (110407) 2009-01-11 8:57

Olá José,
nice presentation of the cathedral of Girona.I like the great contrast between the white of the Cathedral,with the blue of the sky.The result of the 5 stitched photos, in my mind is very good, with the vertical lines of the building, to be perfect.Well done.

Have a nice week,Danos

Felip (3907) 2009-01-11 11:18

Olá José,
Al principio me ha costado reconocer la catedral de Girona en tu fotografía, ya que el punto de vista elegido no es el mas habitual, frontalmente y desde el pie de la escalinata. El brillante color del cielo y tu nota referente a la dureza de esta composición, hacen que valga la pena dedicarle un buen rato para contemplarla.

Saludos

Felip

Rafer (0) 2009-01-11 11:33

Acierto total de la mil veces fotografiada catedral de Girona en el portal de arriba..y los coches no sobran..saludos

sunamoon (10) 2009-01-11 12:47

Hola Jose,

Es impresionante esta catedral con esa gran torre,
me gusta los colores y el encuadre perfecto,
me da la sensación que la foto esta un poco alargada,
no se si es así, quizás una modificación de la altura a 750 píxeles, me parece que quedaría mejor.. pero es un buen trabajo!

Un saludo,
Elena

npecanhuk (79329) 2009-01-11 12:50

Olá José!
Gostei bastante dessa fotografia de arquitetura!
A Catedral não é muito rebuscada, mas suas formas retas ficaram muito boas nesta luminosidade e com o contraste com o céu muito azul!
A imagem é atraente, agradável e muito bonita!
Parabéns, abraços e até mais!
Neyvan

jlbrthnn (76041) 2009-01-11 13:02

Bonsoir José,
Não encontro nada a dizer contra a qualidade deesta montagem, que julgo antes tido êxito. Não há deformações, as cores são naturais, o interesse da fotografia é manifesto. Os ws são um excelente complemento. Bravo.
Bom fim de noite.
Cordialmente
Joël

Sistercosmo (242) 2009-01-11 15:27

Hi Jose,
this stitch isn't unsuccessful, you've done a good job with it! What program are you using? Your result is very good! If you want to get it even better, there are lots of folks here that can help! (I'm not one of them, but I know a few....) Wonderful shot!
Thanks and take care,
Linda

shevchenko (20560) 2009-01-11 20:21

Hello Jose,

I have the same problem with Lens Correction too, although this function can make architecture looking straight and standing well in a photo, but some others things will became not so good in balancing, like the top of clock tower, and the shape of tree at above photo ( may be the tree really not growing straight? )

I think you have spend long times to process and obtained the final image, I like the color in a sunny day, interesting composition to show a historical church, thanks for sharing.

Ally

gracious (20025) 2009-01-12 1:06

Ola Jose,
I think your stitching is pretty good to me and I loved it!
especially the pov with depth to see the real height of the might church presented in this image!
the subject makes nice colour contrast against clear blue sky as well
many thanks for the sharing and the notes
cheers
Tony

parbo (11092) 2009-01-12 7:01

Olá José,

Very attractive view of Cathedral of Girona since its thumbnail. Your stitching work unrecognizable without your informative note and complementary workshop posts.

Its differently designed bell tower and architecture due to converting from mosque is very interesting. Shadowed clock on facade and well ornamented entrance is eye catching while the colorful cars helping the scale your perfect capture and this giant facade. Have a nice new week.

Parabéns e Abraço!

Ertugrul

Graal (103040) 2009-01-13 0:10

Hi Jose,
great architecture of cathedral, an interesting presentation and complementary WS. Good informations in note. Solid photojob. I like it.
Gr., Aleksander

jmdias (102770) 2009-01-13 15:30

zé

a bela catedral de girona.. quando lá estive preferi tirar a foto de outro pov, este aqui me parece bem diferente e gosto dele e da luz que valoriza a simplicidade da arquitetura

abraços

jorge

JCG (35153) 2009-01-14 1:53

Bonjour José,

Très bon travail d'assemblage ici quand on voit les photos qui t'on servies pour le stitch, l'image est parfait et aucune distortion, j'aime beaucoup la mise en valeur de cette belle et grande cathédrale. La bonne luminosité apporte un relief appréciable à l'architecture et ce ciel d'un bleu limpide fait agréablement ressortir les jolies teintes de la pierre. Une bonne et intéressante photo, bravo José et merci pour la note instructive qui complète le sujet.

Avec toutes mes amitiés et une très bonne journée,

Jean-Charles

mikolaj_kawa (0) 2009-01-15 2:57

Ola Jose! Amazing architecture. Wonderful cathedral. Excellent light, bright and colours. Good POV and capture. Original picture. Saudacoes!

zeynepe (0) 2009-01-15 6:40

Ola Jose,
First of all , I want to thank you.
and of course you'll ask "Why"?
I have to admit that I am not a good traveller.I went to Europe(except Portugal) and some part of the north Africa only.The worst thing is at that time I wasn't interested in photography, therefore I had no valuable photos of the countries I went and as my money situation is not so great nowadays, I can't travel the same places again:( Girona-especially this cathedral was impressed me so much.As a stitching specialist, this one is good under the harsh light conditions.
As a solution of my problem maybe I can create a theme for the places I know:)Parabens
Un saludo,
Zeynep

Fis2 (155487) 2009-01-15 12:37

Witaj Jose!
I love old architecture.
Good frame and composition.
I like the light and colors.
Well done.
Regards
Krzysztof

Bluejeans (64251) 2009-01-21 11:41

Oi amigo ,
Magnifica colagem de 5 fotos a igreja é bem imponente tem uma bonita entrada , boa luz , belo ponto de visão com o sol de lateral , parabéns!!
Um abraço Gonçalo