Panorama Picnic

No sense describing this, just watch the video and read the article. I’m going to do everything possible to get this built and bring it to Penland.  Imagine painting a live panorama……

VR painting by Andrew Magill.

BTW. Vrmag.org is an e-magazine that focuses on panoramas and VRs.

I found this short video that shows the process of creating a full 360/180 degree panorama. It’s by Eric Rougier who is a terrific panorama geek from France. His website is FromParis.com.

He is using a sophisticated pano head, which is one reason this looks so simple, but otherwise its an accurate illustration. He is working towards creating an interactive VR posted online, not necessarily a flat image to print. This might get a bit too technical at the end, but we will go over it. Also, I will be bringing the pano head that he is using to the summer class.

If you bring your electric guitar, I’ll bring some drums…

Eric Rougier Making a Panorama

Adobe will be releasing its new version of Photoshop, CS5, in the next month.  If you are/were thinking of purchasing CS4, I would hold off until its released.  This short video on one new feature in CS5 is enough to get me excited.  This video has gone viral on the internet in just the past few weeks.  Stick with it to the end, it gets much more interesting (especially to panoramic photographers). I hope we will be using it this summer during the course.

No, this isn't real infrared. I used a regular color image and tried to fake it in Photoshop. Just wait though, I'll soon post a real infrared one. (whatever "real" means in this context).

Infrared are wavelengths that are just on the lower edge of what the human eye can see.  Ever since there was film, photographers have made images with infrared light.  It was a bit of a pain to do so. You needed special film, a deep filter on your camera, light metering was difficult, and the exposures were so long that it required a tripod. But the effect could be beautiful: dark skies, brilliant clouds and foliage.

In the digital age,  using infrared as an artistic device has become less frequent. It’s harder to do digitally, but also perhaps with all the digital tools that are available to a photographer there is less need for using the infrared effect.

There is a resurgence, however, and it has become VERY easy to photograph with infrared light, but you have to entirely give up a DSLR camera to the cause.  It turns out that the sensors in digital cameras are actually extremely sensitive and receptive to Infrared light.  In fact, more than 50% of its sensitivity is in the Infrared range.  This is such a problem that all digital cameras have a filter in front of the sensor that removes all the infrared light and only lets visible light pass.   If you are willing to permanently give up a camera, you can send it off and have this filter removed and replaced with one that passes all the infrared light plus removes most of the visible light.  The sensitivity of the camera is about the same.  The light meter still works fine.  You don’t need any special filters.  You can hand hold the camera.  Suddenly, with the ability to hand hold you can take photos that weren’t possible before – like of people.

So, we have this old Nikon D70 camera that is in great shape, but not used because everyone wants the newer cameras (and rightly so!).  We are going to send this off to a company and have the filters swapped.  When I get the camera, I’ll upload some images.  And yes, I’ll bring this camera to the Penland Summer class and you all can try it out.

Here is one of many links that talks about this.  This is the company that will perform the operation.

http://www.lifepixel.com

“Photographers do not create facts, but they do create viewpoints” Adriaan Monshouwer

A few months ago an old friend of mine and I were cracking up remembering a photo course I taught years ago where I started off by washing all the students’ feet. We both now work in academia and could see the headlines – something to do with the health department, sexual harassment, or religion in public schools. Now trust me, this class won’t be doing feet cleansing this summer, but the impetus behind that opening event is still important.

Photographers frequently talk about bringing the intellect, the eye, the intuition, and/or the heart to taking photographs, but where the photographer chooses to stand when s/he takes a picture is also a root of the image. Where are you standing?  What stand are you taking?   “Aiming” usually implies that the shooter is in location, but how was the location selected?  Moving a few feet can change the entire meaning of a photograph.  And I enjoy the double meaning of “taking a stand.”

Of the millions of images being uploaded daily, how many take a stand?  How many have a real manifesto behind them?  I enjoy taking quick snapshots, documentary style, on the fly, but I have to balance that out with slow photography where you use a tripod and seriously consider where you are standing.

In terms of output of digital images from the computer, this course will primarily use inkjet prints on paper.  The lab can make prints on a variety of archival papers up to 13×19″ and if they are longer panoramas, we will be able to make prints that are 13″ high and up to 44″ wide.  This is a good size that is an appropriate mix of being economical, easy to transport and view, but also large enough to really proof the print and get an idea of how it would work at larger sizes.  The course will cover basic aspects of color printing techniques.

Additionally, the course will also cover electronic or screen-based methods of viewing, distributing, or experiencing an immersive photograph.  These will include: basic web delivery, Quicktime VR and flash for immersive presentations, simple animations and using Gigapan.org for displaying super-resolution images.

Digital panoramas are actually considered a subset of multi-shot techniques.  This area of digital photography utilizes software to blend together numerous (sometimes thousands) of separate still images into one final image.  This can allow the photographer to create images or effects that would be otherwise difficult or impossible.  Other multi-shot techniques include: High Dynamic Range Imagery, Focus Stacking, and Super Resolution.  During the class we will be going over many of these techniques.

As are most courses at Penland School, this course is for all levels.  These are my favorite classes to teach.  I expect that we will have students who are interested in photography, but have never felt that they have fully mastered a digital camera and the software required to make excellent photographs.  As well, I expect we will have very seasoned photographers who want two immersive weeks to really focus on their work, learn new techniques, loosen-up or tighten-up their own image making process, and continue to expand their body of work and knowledge.  In addition, the course would be of interest to other artists who work in a different media who want to understand how to work digitally with images and to document spaces.

So how technical will this class be?

No, we won’t be doing heavy math, but we sure should be appreciative to all the programmers who have made our photographer’s life easy. (BTW, these formulas are used by software programs to even out exposures across a stitch.)

But I do want to be clear that this class will be technical and it will involve working at a computer pushing pixels around for large chunks of time.   We will have to learn Photoshop and controlling a camera to a pretty deep level.  If you can’t control the software or the camera, it will control you.

This technical material will be balanced by the other large chunk of class time –  out taking pictures and interacting with the world!  Also, Chris‘ offer to have us use his Pinhole Blender cameras will be a refreshing complement to our work.

The short story is that the course will nurture all skill levels, as well as balance all aspects of the creative spirit.

At a computer graphics conference this past summer, I went to a great talk entitled, “The Next Billion Cameras”.   Humans have spent the last 100 years building the first billion cameras, but in just a few more years we will have built the next billion cameras.  Thats a lot of images!  There are currently more than 40 billion photos on Facebook alone.  (Remember that there are only 6 billion people on the planet).  Add in 12 more billion photos on the Flickr site.  These numbers are difficult to comprehend.  The amount of online image chatter is staggering.  The talk was about that taken individually these images may not be that important (or even good), but taken as a mass, they become a huge resource.  With this huge volume of images, and with computer programs that can search each one and then combine it with findings from other images, new information can be discovered. If we have time this summer, it would be interesting to look at some of these examples of mining billions of images for information.

Technically many cell phones and point & shoot cameras can automatically stitch together multiple shots into panoramas.  They are successful and fun to use.  Their interfaces for doing this are very intuitive, friendly and cool.  However, their stitching can only get you so far.  As long as you are taking tourist type of shots of distant landscapes they work OK.  However,  you have little control – especially when something goes wrong.  They also can’t take full spherical shots nor can they handle objects that are near the camera.

I just realized that 3rd session at Penland this summer includes the 4th of July.  If you have never been to Penland for this event, you may have missed something. Besides the spectacular private fireworks show for the Penland community, the main event is the traditional (if you can call it traditional) parade, where basically anything goes.  Studios, individuals, groups, are invited to create a float, performance, line dance, whatever.

I’ve included here a short clip from the Postcard from Penland video that gives a hint of what the 4th can be like.

It’s probably not too early to be thinking about what we want to do for the event…..