The World Wide Panorama

Introduction

The World Wide Panorama event of the first quarter of 2026 is a collection of panoramas with the common theme of “Perception”.

Theme Essay: Perception

The essay conveys the team’s idea of the event. It is usually published together with the Theme announcement and offers a starting point for the contributing photographers.

Perception

by ChatGPT and Team

Perception can be defined by its limits, but also by its reach. The ambition of panoramic photography is to increase the reach and eliminate the limits. Nothing is meant to remain outside the frame. But no matter how hard we try, perception remains incomplete.

To understand this better, let’s take a look at Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”. For the prisoners, the shadows on the wall show their entire world, because nothing else is visible to them. At first glance, a 360° panorama seemingly offers an escape, as we can look in every single direction. But we are still in the cave – it merely changed its appearance. The sphere of the panorama becomes the new confining feature. It defines what we perceive as “everything” while it excludes the things we can’t capture: time, context, intention and meaning. And we don’t even realise it.

And what is more, every photographer, taking spherical panoramas, knows about the importance of the chosen point of view. View axis, elevation, perspective, time of day… Choosing these elements, we build the cave for the observers. We actually set limits to what can be perceived, while suggesting that the viewer has the complete overview. We can try to counteract this by moving a few steps to the side, for example. But even this only introduces new limits.

Being aware of the limits of perception can guide us towards ideas on what to photograph in spherical panoramas. Spaces like caves, courtyards, forests, narrow streets, or interiors can turn the 360° image into a discernible echo of Plato’s cave. Places of orientation and disorientation, such as crossroads, ritual sites, or empty public squares, invite the viewer to search for meaning without having been shown the right direction. Scenes where the nadir reveals the photographer’s own shadow or tripod can deliberately break the illusion of neutrality, reminding the viewer that perception is always situational.

Spherical panoramas can also be used to deliberately create moments of ambiguity: twilight, fog, snowfall or crowds in motion. In these conditions, even complete spatial coverage can’t resolve uncertainty. The viewer may see everything and still doesn’t know what is happening.