City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden

The council chamber ceiling. Originally the ceiling was intended to be flat, with the beams being hidden, but it was later decided to open it up and give the chamber a higher ceiling, which is 19 meters from the floor at the highest point. The beams are encased in a wood boxes.

Mosaic in the Golden Hall. The woman in the center is the "Queen of Lake Mälaren" (an old nickname for Stockholm), sitting in the center of the world, with The East and The West to her left and right. A couple of fun historical facts: First, the art critics of the day were not merciful to the poor woman in the center. She was universally condemned as being just plain ugly and not representative of Stockholm. Since the artist had used his own wife as model, that criticism hit very close to home and he explained her appearance thusly: "Her eyes are big, so she can watch over the citizens, her feet are big so she can stand firm, and her hair symbolize the Sun (and not Medusa's snakes, as had been asserted)". The second fun fact is that it took a couple of years to finish the mosaic, only for the workers to realize they had made a huge mistake. As you can see on the photo, the bottom edge of the mosaic is a slight bit above the floor, and the top of the mosaic is a slight bit below the ceiling. What happened was that the artist in charge forgot about the bottom padding, and the whole mosaic is therefore about a foot too far up. Of course, by the time this was noticed it was far too late to do anything about it and still make the deadline. This isn't really noticable on this side, but near the entrance to the Golden Hall there is a picture of Stockholm's patron saint, St. Erik, whose head has been chopped off by the ceiling.

Part of the mosaic in the Golden Hall. This skyscrapers of New York, with the US flag on top, symbolize the far end of world in the West.

The first attempt at a panorama using the Raynox DCR-250, Nikon D40, Nikon 18-55mm VR II and Nodal Ninja 3. The field of view is roughly 76 degrees horizontal and 68 degrees vertical, which makes it approximately equivalent to a theoretical 12mm macro lens that is cropped horizontally. For comparison, at 28mm the Nikon 18-55mm covers a 52x36 degree field of view. The boredom of the subject is, for me at least, offset by the excitement of actually being able to create it.

The second attempt at a panorama. Same equipment as the first. This time the field of view was 64 by 42 degrees, approximately equivalent to a theoretical 18mm macro lens, and made from three separate exposures (left-center-right).

A flower pot outside City Hall.