This is a dead lake. It’s so polluted that nothing can live in it anymore. Good symmetry in this panorama though — I might be bias because I took it. I’m still not entirely sure where it is, Florida has numerous towns called ‘Winter something’ and we went to the wrong one. But was it really wrong, or was it just a diversion that led me to play around with panoramas. (Spoiler — it was definitely wrong and we nearly missed the boat trip).

These were only taken on an iPhone — is it the best camera I have, no. But some might say that the best camera is the one you have with you at the time… Plus it takes spectacular panoramic stills without stitching or editing or messing about. So actually, this is my best panoramic camera. I still have to take about 20 shots before I get a mildly acceptable one — either I’m shaking too much, or I ruin the symmetry, or you get a headless tourist mashed up in the middle. That’s always the worst — I’m not a fan of tourists, they ruin my shot.

But, tourists are quite useful as a navigational tool. If I’m standing next to a bunch of tourists all trying to take a poorly framed photo of their friends with an iPad, then I’m off. That photo is only good to send to your mum. I want photos that nobody else has, I want to adventure to some random point and start getting a sweat on just so I can capture a strange angle that make the subject a bit unrecognisable at first glance. I’m certainly not after a tourist picture of me in front of the Eiffel Tower taken by a French man who is just trying to get home from a busy day of work and is bored of being asked by tourists to take a picture of them and their tourist friends in front of the Eiffel Tower.

Helicopter’s are fun though — more convenient than a plane, less traffic than a car. And less tourists. If you take a helicopter to The Grand Canyon you should get this shot of the beautiful landscape. (Thankfully the tourists in the front didn’t know what an iPad was). Ok, it’s not entirely of the landscape and it’s not entirely original, but I don’t know anyone else with one like it! So that’s good enough for me in my early days of dabbling in panoramic.

This panoramic was more about getting the shot than the actual shot, it had an element of danger, mild ‘lawlessness’ and I even got a bit wet. There used to be stairs to the bottom, but they’re derelict and not maintained, so climbing the fence was the first hurdle. Literally. Then you have to slide a bit down some rocks, go under a fence, before descending a dried up waterfall. Then boom. Webster’s Falls! I could see the iPad tourists on the path at the top, just wishing they were down here. But no, they’ll forever be up there, with their standard tourist shot that will always be squarer and less fun than my panoramic beast.

- Dan