Peace Bridge

The Panorama opens with the Peace Bridge framing the Guildhall, where the City Council meet. Behind the sun is setting.

The Peace Bridge is a cycle and footbridge bridge across the River Foyle in Derry, Northern Ireland. It was one of the largest projects supported under the European Union’s European Regional Development Fund’s Peace III Programme (2007-2013).

These funding programmes were intended to provide a "Peace Dividend" after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, intended to end the inter-community conflict in the North of Ireland.

The 235 metres (771 ft) bridge was designed by, American engineering design company, AECOM, who also designed the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge, and Wilkinson Eyre Architects who also were responsible for the Gateshead Millennium Bridge.

The Peace Bridge was opened on 25 June 2011 by EU Commissioner for Regional Policy, Johannes Hahn; accompanied by the First and Deputy First Ministers, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness; and the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

The interlocking curves of the bridges span are said to symbolise hands reaching for each other from each side of the river.

Hence the Peace Bridge both physically and symbolically embodies a reconciliation of the communities on either side of the River Foyle.

In another evocation of the theme of peace, this panorama was shot from Ebrington Square which has been redeveloped as a civic space by ILEX the local regeneration company. For more than 150 years before that it was the site of a British Army Naval and military base known as Ebrington Barracks.

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Europe / UK-Northern Ireland

Lat: 54° 59' 54.61" N
Long: 8° 19' 46.4" W

Elevation: 20m

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Precision is: High. Pinpoints the exact spot.

The source images were taken with a Canon EOS 5D Mk II, Canon EF 15mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens.

The camera was mounted on a Kaiden Kiwi panorama adapter on a Manfrotto 190XDB tripod with a Bushman Monopole extension lifting the camera to about four metres.

A sky shot and six shots, tilted slightly below the horizontal, were taken. These were at 60° intervals. Each "shot" consisted of five bracketed exposures from +2 to -2 stops. (The exposures were at shutter speeds: 1/500, 1/250, 1/125, 1/60, 1/30 all at an aperture of f/16.)

A total of 45 separate images were combined using Hugin (which in turn invokes Nona, Enfuse and Enblend) in order to achieve this High Dynamic Range type result.