[360°, border, Celtic, Donegal, featured, Featured-RB, hi res, Hugin, Ireland, Irish, Lifford, panorama, planet, public art, raw, road, roundabout, sculpture, shamrock, Sold as Print, sky out, square format, stereographic, Panoramas of Ireland Calendar 2013, Strabane, three, >500, >1,000, >2,000 >3,000 views, winner, ten features in nine groups]

1. 14th December 2012 view count reached 3,001

1. 7th November 2012 Featured for a second time in “Sculpture” making for ten features in nine groups

The source images were shot in Raw mode on a Canon EOS 5d DSLR with a 16 mm M42 manual Fisheye lens mounted on the Canon via an EOS adapter.

This 360° panorama was shot on the traffic roundabout at the entrance to the town of Lifford (Leifear in Irish) in County Donegal, Ireland. The roundabout is home to a piece of public art called “The Three Coins”. It was designed by a company called “Cod Steaks” who specialise in public art projects.

Lifford is the seat of local government and administrative centre of County Donegal. But, in recent years, people in Lifford felt that the town had been side-lined. (Letterkenny has developed into Donegal’s larger centre of industry, retail, education, and leisure facilities. Across the river, county boundary and border, Strabane in County Derry has also grown larger and busier than Lifford.)
So this sculpture was commissioned in an effort to re-assert Lifford as the gateway to Donegal.

The three coins symbolise the three rivers that converge at Lifford and no doubt are also seen as symbolising other triples such as past, present and future; and the shamrock’s trinity. Each coin includes pictorial references to Lifford’s history. Around the edge of each one is embossed the Latin phrase: “Praeterita Fecunda ~ Futura Praeclara” which means something like “Fruitful Heritage and Bright Future”
The 3 coins stand at 4.5m, 3m and 2.5 m in height.

	This image is also available as part of a calendar
	Panoramic views of Ireland

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.

The source images were shot on a Canon EOS 5d DSLR with a 16 mm Fisheye lens and stitched and blended using Hugin (a free open soure program).

I have written a short journal entry introducing the method by which these panoramas are created, it is called:
“Creating a Stereographic Panorama – the Basic Idea”

History of this image at RedBubble

1. 13th March 2010 – this panorama was uploaded to Red Bubble
2. 11th April 2010 it had been viewed 101 times, had been commented on 12 times and had become a favourite image of 4 people.
3. 26 th April 2010 Sold as a Print – a 305mm x 305mm laminated print.
4. 16th April 2011 it had been viewed 500 times and been made a favourite by 10 people.
5. 20th March 2012 it had been viewed 1675 times
6. 21st March 2012 This image was joint winner of the Circles and Squares challenge in the Through the Eyes of the Lens group.
7. 7th November 2012 Featured for a second time in “Sculpture” making for ten features in nine groups
8. 14th December 2012 view count reached 3,001

It has been featured ten times in nine groups RedBubble Groups:

1. “#3”,
2. “Mini Galaxy”,
3. “JPG Cast-Offs”
4. “One, two, three”,
5. “Sculpture” twice (second time 7th November 2012 )
6. “Canon Photography Only”
7. “Superbly visual”
8. “Featured for a Challenge” (20 March 2012)
9. “Freelance Photographers” group (4th April 2012)

I have three collections here of stereographic panoramas like this one, they are panoramas of:

Donegal	Derry
The Aran Islands