This 360° panoramic image was shot at dawn on the Winter Solstice 2007 at the ancient stone fort known as Grianan of Ailach, in County Donegal, Ireland.
Grianan of Ailach literally means the "Fortress of the Sun".
The panoramic image was created by combining 27 separate digital photographs covering every angle and with bracketed exposures. Hence the detail has been captured both in the brightest areas of the sky and in the shadows inside the fort.
There has been a stone structure on this site for almost three thousand years. It appeared on a map of Ireland made by Ptolemy sometime before 200AD.
The Very Derry website has a virtual reality version of the Winter Solstice at Dawn.
This image also appears in two calendars available on the Cafe Press website.
Because of the way that it was created this is a very high resolution image (the equivalent of about 80-megapixels). It is capable of delivering very fine detail even when printed at massive sizes.
It can be printed so large that it tests the limits of Imagekind‘s framing service. You could print it at:
- 24″x24″ and frame it with a 4″ to 6″ mat
- 36″x36″ and frame it with no mat at all, or with one up to a 2"
- 36″x36″ on canvas
- 44″x44″ on paper and have it framed elsewhere.
At sizes up to 24″ square it will look good. At the larger sizes it is a real stunner!