Worth a Look: Mareen Fischinger

Panographie Times Square © Mareen Fischinger

One of the great things about the internet is the way you can come across a new page and then discover something new, fresh and exciting. This happened the other day when I read a rather nice article about photocollages over on DPreview by staff writer Barney Britton, which laid out an easy to follow method for building photocollages in Photoshop, along with some good examples. One of the bad things about the internet is the way that some people will post negative and even rude comments about a subject that they have no knowledge of, and Mr Britton got some of those (why?...).
 

Panografie Notre Dame © Mareen Fischinger

The exciting thing on this page, buried in the comments, was a recommendation of Mareen Fischinger’s Panography pictures. And what pictures they are; energetic, lively and exciting images of mostly communal urban spaces. Familiar landmarks look as though they are dancing.

Panographie Landschaftspark © Mareen Fischinger

Mareen Fischinger is a professional photographer from Cologne, and the panographs she has created are her personal project. Unlike the joiners of David Hockney and Noel Myles, her pictures are always based from one viewpoint, but of course, capturing many moments in time. She talks about how she likes to capture the changes in the scene, and this results in the lively, busy feel to many of her pictures.

Panographie Arc de Triomphe © Mareen Fischinger

Although shot from a single view point to give a very wide angle of view, she subverts the big picture by slightly altering the arrangement of the constituent images. Combined with arbitrary angles of each individual frame, the resultant complete panograph looks as though a pile of transparencies have been thrown onto a lightbox and magically rearranged themselves. Fischinger presents iconic, familiar places with a fresh perspective, such as the Arc de Triomphe above and the Beauborg below.

Panografie Centre Pompidou © Mareen Fischinger

This fairground scene crackles with energy and movement.

Panografie Kirmes © Mareen Fischinger

Mareen Fischinger makes no secret of her technique, and has generously shared her working method in an article on Photojojo. But technique alone won't make a picture; a vision is required. To find out more, hear Fischinger talk about her interests, motivations and approach to panographies in this neat little video.

»Panography« from Mareen Fischinger on Vimeo.