Having been to Tuscany for the first time this May, I was immediately interested to read the article and prepared to see some amazing pictures. Tuscany must be a landscape photographers paradise - especially if you get out at dawn. However, although the idea of using a long pole to get a different perspective on the land is a great one, I felt the whole article was a triumph of the technical over the aesthetic. The author comes across more as a technician than a creator, and following the link to the website I found very little to inspire. Even the pictures there are dotted with little sections that are enlarged as if to show how sharp and detailed the pictures are, and yet in the main the pictures themselves are not that great. If the article and website are just about the technicalities of shooting from a long pole and stitching - fine. But the authors opening few paragraphs indicate that these pictures are the end result of the project (which is ongoing). To be honest, because of the hilly nature of the terrain, it is very easy to find elevated positions in Tuscany without needing a long pole, and in my opinion the pictures used do not make a great case for using such a system in that region.
Enrico may be a very good landscape photographer, but the evidence is not in this article. Perhaps this exercise of using the long pole has come between himself and his art.
Jim
