Principles

2 Principles in my photography:
1) I follow very strictly the approach to create the panoramic image on the spot ! I never created panos by cropping a regular picture trying to get something out of it. Maybe for reviewing purpose and to find out if a subject deserves a revisit with the panorama camera. Save your time to discuss this with me ;-)
2) I try to shoot fullframe as much as possible, I avoid any cropping. It teaches you to shoot, not to snap around !

One more principle, but I am not so strict about it: If I shoot color, I occasionally convert it into bw, even I feel like cheating ! This happens very often to color images I shoot during the day, in case the result just lacks of color impact. Shouldnt shoot during mid-day, right ? But you cannot always return on a road-trip to a specific spot at late afternoon because you are already 500km away from it.
And if you loaded color into the cam, you cant change it (without lots of waste).

I share a converted sample with you:

6x17 with Agfa RSX II, but I am not happy with color version.

panochrome book

Always carrying around ideas, but it takes ages before they manifest themselves. This is the first copy of my panochrome book.
PANOCHROME [PANO]rama-mono[CHROME]. I want to use as presentation material at next weeks P.I.X Singapore (link) when I talk about presentation of panoramic work (online, prints, frames, book,..). Please be inspired !

Heading West 3

More selected images from the series and exhibition.

Panorama Presentation

I am in the middle of the preparation for the presentation about Panorama Photography I will do at the P.I.X. Photo Imaging X-Change Singapore event on November 4th (link). The research about this topic reveals lots of interesting stories and information, which I didn't know before. I am "doing" Panoramas, I don't have Ph.D. on the history of it. One of the websites I re-visited is the collection of Panoramic Photographs (Taking the Long View, 1851-1991) showing a big number of very old images available in high resolution, as early as 1850. Amazing what these pioneers created with simple and bulky cameras. Thanks to the Library of Congress for maintaining this collection and making it so easy accessible.

Even only 1 participant might show up the presentation, it was worth the preparation and the research. If you join, I will tell you a bit about the history of panorama photography, its origins, todays available cameras and techniques, will talk about styles and tools, show some images as appetizer and give some advice how to start your journey into the panoramic world.

(c) Panoramic photographs (Library of Congress) pan 6a26071

Apple iPhone Crack

Oh no..... the site has been hacked. Just kidding. Just want to mention, you wont find any stories, executables, patches, installers or links about Apple products here, not the iphone, not the ipod or whatever product. This is about classic (panorama) photography only. I have regular visitors to this blog and after updating it, new topics show up quickly in the search engine. I just want to find out if this topic changes the visitor stream. So, bear with me and sorry for make you read this rubbish. I am already preparing the next serious entry.
Update 30.10.2007
20 days later, there is not a single hit because of these hot words ! So, dont waste your time trying to bring up the visitor numbers of you r blog or page with odd keywords. Be a serious blogger !

Heading West Part 2

I continue my journey through these old negatives. I just realized how much I like them and almost missed this pictures, didnt look at them for along time.

Contact Sheet

Isn't the good old-fashioned contactsheet a wonderful thing ? I was used to create them in the darkroom by putting the negatives under glas on a sheet of photo paper, later keeping them in a folder for browsing. It helped me to decide which negative finally to print. Moving to digital I stopped doing that (using the digital contactsheet in PS oder any image browser). And Why ? Because in the digital age you do 100's of image on a single CF, ending up with 5mm by 5mm sized thumbnails on a contactsheet (and most of the images might be even meaningless). While returning to film in a hybrid way (shoot film, scan and print digital) I am also back to my favorite contactsheets. I scan and print one for each film, put them in a folder and enjoy browsing through it to gather ideas or decide which one to print. Give it a try ! Is much more fun than "page-downing" through hundred of images in fornt of the screen !
Remark: A contactsheet is a very "personal" thing which I would not share normally.