Photographer, engineer, and entrepreneur Dan Piech has long been fascinated by the possibilities of ultra-high resolution photos, spending over a decade refining his techniques. His recent work A New York City Dream is an impressive 602-megapixel composite made from 189 individual photographs of the Manhattan skyline. Taking 160 hours to create, the stunning photograph is an incredible vision of New York City, unlike any other.
“I wanted to create an extremely high-resolution photographic artwork that captured the vibrant energy our city continually bursts forth with—a seemingly chaotic energy that nevertheless has structure, order, and rhythm,” Piech shares. From a rooftop in Queens, Piech and an assistant spent New Year’s Eve capturing the images that would make up this ultra-high resolution photograph of New York City.
It took a year of careful color-grading and detailed stitching to put together an image that would have the look and feel of the actual skyline while achieving an aesthetically pleasing harmony. The result is an astonishing fine art image where the whole is as impressive as the individual details. From the iconic Empire State Building to the revelers celebrating New Year’s, there’s no shortage of treasures to behold within the image.
Using 9,563 megapixels of data for the final 602-megapixel photograph, A New York City Dream can be enlarged to dozens of square feet and still retain its sharpness. It’s just one example of what Piech has achieved after the launch of his platform VAST Photos, which specializes in ultra high-resolution fine art photography.
Piech launched VAST with an aim to bring fine art photographers with stunning aesthetics together with technical experts specialized in producing high resolution (1,000+ megapixel) images. VAST currently works with a roster of 11 artists who create these specialized images. Using high dynamic range imaging, focus stacking, image blending, and other techniques, these special photographs can be printed on a large scale with razor-sharp quality.
Prints of A New York City Dream are currently available via VAST Photos.
It took 160 hours to put together this 602-megapixel photograph of the Manhattan skyline.
The ultra-high resolution photograph is comprised of 189 individual images taken over the course of New Year’s Eve.
