To see these wonderful images in High Definition that you can zoom in on to see the wonderful detail please follow this link to the Digital Masters Website.

Manly has certainly grown and changed in the one hundred years since the first image was made, but it’s still the paradise by the sea I love.

The 1912 image was made from Dalley’s Castle, which stood on the western hill behind Manly looking east. The view was simply stupendous, covering over two hundred degrees from Manly Oval in the north, the ocean beaches, Manly’s CBD, North Head and then looking out over North Harbour to the south.

Today the view remains as impressive as it did back in 1912. The main features are all still there, yet Manly is certainly not the sleepy little beach side town it once was.

Recreating the panorama presented several challenges, not least of which is that Dalley’s Castle no longer exists. So making a new image from exactly the same camera position would be impossible. Dalley’s Castle was demolished some time around the 1930’s to make way for the red brick units there today. Its foundations and walls can still be seen on the left hand side of Sydney Road as you drive up the hill. Another problem was the growth of all the trees that in 1912 where just saplings, today most are towing trees in excess of thirty meters.

The only way was up and I was grateful for Manly Fire Brigade assistance with their “Bronto” aerial appliance that was able to lift me above the trees to see the view. The footprint of the red brick units is much larger than the original building and due to the overhead powerlines the only location we where able to put the truck up was further forward and to the left of the original camera position.

The 1912 Panorama was scanned at high resolution and restored by
David Myers from Digital Masters (www.digitalmasters.com.au). The detail in the original image is amazing (follow the link at the top of the page to see the High Definition versions) and was probably made with a large format camera called a Kodak Cirkut Panorama Camera that where very popular around this time and some remain in use today. These cameras work by revolving around centre point allowing images of up to 360 degrees to be made. The 1912 Manly panorama covers more than two hundred degrees.

I don’t have access to one of these cameras or a modern version so I decide to make the image by shooting multiple images with a digital camera mounted on a special tripod. David Myers then stitched these images together with special computer software
to create the 2008 master image.

Beautiful prints of the 1912 and 2008 Manly Panoramas are available upon request.

Please contact me via email david@nomadphoto.com.au for pricing.