Interlaken Panorama | An Alpine Town Between Two Lakes | 360° Gigapixel Panorama

This hundred-billion-pixel panorama was an accident

In September 2019, the plan was to photograph Lauterbrunnen — often called one of the most beautiful waterfall villages in the world — with Interlaken only as a stopover. Alpine weather is famously fickle. Forecasts barely hold, and landscape photography here is a matter of luck.

Unfortunately we ran into two straight days of rain, and the valley shoot collapsed. Stuck in Interlaken, I was studying topographic maps when I noticed the high point on the north side of town: Harder Kulm. From the summit the view was overwhelming, and we started work at once. The finished panorama was assembled from 3,746 frames shot on a Sony Alpha A7R IV, at about 190 gigapixels, after four weeks of post-production.

A side position, and four hours of waiting

Anyone who knows this place knows that Harder Kulm's viewing platform is held out over the cliff on a steel structure. The triangular tip is a favorite photo spot, and visitors queue there constantly.

I needed to stand in one place with a tripod for three to four hours. Occupying the prime spot would have blocked everyone else. To stay out of the way, I moved to a quieter position on the side — windier, but free of interruptions during a continuous capture.

High-altitude array shooting has two real tests.

Cold and stiffness: The wind on the summit is fierce. Fingers go numb after long exposure to the cold, yet every pan-head and focus adjustment still has to be precise.

Stitching light against the sun: At this resolution, every sector needs direct sunlight if you want to zoom down to ground-level detail. Clouds were racing, and patches of light kept sliding across the valley. I watched the shadow tracks and worked against the sun: when the cloud moved and the light arrived, I grabbed that sector.

So the photograph you see is not one instant of weather. It is the cleanest, brightest light from four hours over Interlaken, stitched together piece by piece.

Zoom in. These details are worth hunting for

What makes this image compelling is how it records the reason, order, and everyday life of an Alpine town. Zoom in and look for:

The two lakes and the wakes on the water: Lake Brienz is on the left, Lake Thun on the right, both fed by glacial melt. Look at the water and you can find vintage steamers leaving white wakes, and even the ropes and buoys along the wooden piers.

Paragliders, and the instructors who stayed: Look up. Those tiny colored dots are paragliders. Zoom in and you can read canopy fabric, lines, and the posture of each flyer. Paragliding is a pillar of the local economy. The story goes that more than a few instructors came for a single flight, then stayed, qualified, and settled among these mountains and lakes.

The three peaks in the distance: Straight ahead, the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau stand in a line. Zoom toward the far ridges and you can study their rock faces, snowfields, and ridgelines.

Town life and the texture of the ground: Pull the view down to the valley floor. The Aare runs through town. Roof tiles on riverside chalets, lettering on street signs, even the outlines of cars in parking lots and the painted lines on the roads are all there.

3,746 original frames and four weeks of selecting, color work, light stitching, panorama repair, and interactive development produced this explorable digital space. Open the panorama and zoom into an Alpine world held at 190 gigapixels.