My Holga on a Lonesome Highway in the White Mountains

There is just something about a camera with a plastic lens. These images were made with my plastic Holga camera and some Kodak 160 VC film. I really love the dreamy feeling a Holga can give an image. It makes photos that look like memories, a little fuzzy around the edges. These images were made up in the Arizona White Mountains. My Holga and my Mamiya C330 are becoming my favorite cameras for landscape photography. I really like the medium format negative the produce, and sometimes it just nice to use a fixed lens on a film camera. Having to wait to see the results is added fun.

Pat Shannahan

www.patshannahan.com

www.stepintoaz.com

@pshannahan  Twitter

Photographing Arizona's Wine Country

AZ Wine Country - Images by Pat Shannahan

These are my favorite pictures I made for a recent story about Arizona's wine country. We went to vineyards in Arizona's Verde Valley as well as vineyards in Sonoita to the south. For me, the most interesting part of working on this story was meeting the wine makers and seeing the work that goes into making wine. In Sonoita, we walked through Todd Bostock's vineyards at sunset sipping Dos Cabezas wine made from the grapes that surrounded us. In the morning we photographed Dick Erath walking though his vineyard outside Wilcox as workers harvested grapes. He started the wine industry in Oregon and is bypassing retirement to experiment with making wine in Arizona. In Jerome we hung out with musician Maynard James Keenan of Tool in his Caduceus Cellar. He is teaming up with Erik Glomski of Page Springs Vineyards to make Arizona Stonghold wine. These photos will be part of a AZ Mag edition dedicated to Arizona's WIne Country. We are also planning on creating a wine page for the travel section of AZCentral.com.

Pat Shannahan
@pshannahan
www.patshannahan.com

Havasupai Waterfalls, a Year After the Flash Flood of 2008.

Havasupai Falls - Images by Pat Shannahan

They almost don't look real. The shades of aqua blue and green look like they belong more in a swanky resort pool than in the Grand Canyon. One resident of the Supai village told the reporter I was with, that tourists have asked about what time of day they turn off the waterfalls. You can hardly blame them, but this is all Mother Nature. Disney couldn't do a better job.

I backpacked into Havasupai with Arizona Republic reporter Dennis Wagner to work on a story about the condition of the area a year after a major flash flood in August 2008 forced more than 400 people to evacuate. The tribe closed the area until June 2009 to repair the damage to the trails, bridges, cemetery and campground. The flood rerouted Havasu Creek away from Navajo Falls, leaving it dry. It made Fifty-Foot Falls bigger and created a new waterfall that is temporarily called Rock Falls. Water now only flows from one of the channels in Havasu Falls. Mooney Falls, which is taller than Niagra Falls, now has a larger swimming area.

In addition to still images, I also shot some 360-degree interactive panoramic images that you can see on AZCentral.com.

So you can get an idea of the power of one of these flash floods, I included a video I found on YouTube of Havasu Fall shot during the flash flood by AOA Adventure Tour Company guide Jon Opem.

Pat Shannahan
www.patshannahan.com

www.patshannahan.com/panoramics

www.stepintoaz.com
@pshannahan

360 Degree Interactive Kayaking Photos

CLICK HERE TO SEE A SET OF 360 DEGREE INTERACTIVE PHOTOS FROM GLEN CANYON

The Colorado Rive is well known for it's white water rapids and rafting trips that can take several weeks to finish. Most people don't know that there is a place near the Grand Canyon where the Colorado River runs smooth and calm through towering canyons, and you don't need a permit to enjoy it. Just north of Lees Ferry, where the Colorado River rafting trips through the Grand Canyon start, is Glen Canyon. For $40, Colorado River Discoveries will take you and your kayak up-river from Lees Ferry to the Glen Canyon Dam. From the dam it's a 14-mile trip back to Lees Ferry. The trip can be done as a day trip or as an over night camping trip. My friend Chris and I decided to take our time and camp at one of the six camping spots. Each campsite has a bathroom and fire ring. We stayed at a spot that was on the south side of Horseshoe Bend, which we had seen the previous day from the top of the cliffs. In the morning, the calm water reflected the cliff walls making it feel as if I was gliding on top of a mirror. It was several hours before we encountered any other people. One of the thing I like about this trip was that we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Other than the occasional tour or fishing boat we didn't run across many other people. The roughest water we experienced was the wake from passing boats.

For more information about activities at Glen Canyon click here.

Instant Classic-- Polaroids

Polaroids - Images by Pat Shannahan

I was inspired by several recent news stories to put together a collection of my favorite images made with my Polaroid SX-70. The great thing about the SX-70 is that is shoots TIme Zero film. The film's emulsion remains soft for a few minutes after the images is made. You can use a dull tipped object, such as a burnishing tool, to move the emulsion around under the plastic cover. The results can look like an painting. All of these images are just scans of the polaroid. No Photoshop filters. Sadly, Polaroid does not make this film anymore and the art of the SX-70 is slipping away. The NY Times has a gallery of reader images shot with polaroid cameras on their Lens photo blog. It's well worth checking out.

NPR has a nice story, with photos, about an exhibit of polaroids at the New York Photo Festival. It shows the work of 14 European photographers who used polaroid instant films.

Catalina Island

Catalina Holga - Images by Pat Shannahan

I spent last weekend camping with friends at the Little Harbor campground on Catalina Island. It was a perfect weekend in every way. I took my point and shoot to make the necessary happy snaps and my Holga to try something different. The above images were all made with my Holga. My favorite is the first image of the wave breaking against the rock. When I see it, my shoulders relax and I can smell the sea air.

Check out My New Website

Please take some time to check out my new web site at www.patshannahan.com. My friend Dan Kempton recently built it for me. We're still fine tuning it, so any feedback would be great. If you want to go right to the panoramic VR photography you can go to www.stepintoaz.com. The website hosts my photojournalism portfolio, documentary work along the U.S. /Mexico Border, a galley of interactive panoramic images, videos, and portraits.

Thanks for the feedback.
Pat

CLICK HERE TO SEE 360-DEGREE INTERACTIVE PHOTO

The world may be ever changing, but the fair stays the same. The animals, rides and fried food bring on a sense of nostalgia. I get sent by The Republic to shoot the county fair each year. This year, I decided to try something different. I prefer to shoot it at night. If you drop the shutter speed down in your camera, you can pick up the twirling and swirling of the rides, and the fair takes on a surreal, dreamy quality. The link above will take you to AZCentral.com - The Arizona Republic's website - where you will see the full interactive photo. The image is made up of 6 photos stitched together. Each photo is taken during a 10 second exposure, which is how I picked up the movement of the rides.

Field View

CLICK HERE TO VIEW INTERACTIVE 360-PHOTO


I did a pano last night as the Dbacks lost to the Dodgers. I wanted to do a photog's view from the field. I plan on doing more at Chase FIeld. Maybe I'll do one this summer from the pool out in right field.

Happy Easter.
Pat

Interactive Views From the Border

UPDATE----- I just added a new view to the border fence pano project. This one is from Nogales, Sonora.

CLICK HERE to take you to a 360-degree interactive view of several parts of the fence along the Arizona/ Mexico border. I just updated it with full-screen buttons to make it more interesting. These were taken from several spots in the desert around Naco and Douglas, Arizona. There is a lot of talk about the border fence but many people don't know what it actually looks like. Here it is.

Panos
I've really been getting into panorama photography. It's an excellent way of communicating a sense of place. For those interested in learning more about pano vr photography, I have complied a list of my favorite pano links.

VRMag is a collection of free online issues full of wonderful panoramas. This is a great place to get info and inspiration.

The Panoramist is a blog by photojournalist Gary O'Brien of The Charlotte Observer. He has a lot of great links and useful information on equipment and software. Gary was nice enough to spend an evening with a co-worker and I pointing us in the right direction on how to use the software and shooting techniques.

I'm really inspired by the panorama work of Bernd Dohrmann. His Starry Night pano is simply beautiful. It's shot at dawn and he has drawn in all of the constelations. has connected all of the constellations together. His site has a great collection of panos that really put you in the middle of the action. Worth viewing.

Panoguide is a great how-to site. The regulars in their forums are helpful and quick to answer questions.

Photojournalist Zach Wise has an interesting pano shot of the neon boneyard in Las Vegas. He also has a good intro to panoramas and list of links.

Bball

U of A catcher is knocked down by an ASU runner in a home plate collision. ASU scored on the play.

Great Story

Here is a link to a great story about 19-year-old Jennifer Marlowe, who has cancer. The story is about her passion for photography and the people who are working to make her dream come true. Anyone who loves photography can relate to her quote "When I take pictures," Jennifer said, "I feel like everything around me disappears." This story is well worth reading.

Pat

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Here is a slideshow of images I made in Ireland while traveling through Cashel, County Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula, and County Clare along Ireland's west coast. The trip was everything I hoped it would be and more. We only spent a day in Dublin, opting instead to spend our time exploring the windy country roads and hiking along the coast. It wasn't too hard to leave the tourists behind and fell like you were having a real experience. I'd go back in  a heartbeat.

All of the photos in this slideshow were taken with a plastic Holga camera. A Holga is made up almost entirely of plastic. It has two shutter speeds, one F stop, and leaks light like a sieve. Why would anyone want to use this camera? The Holga takes photographs that look like memories-- something in focus but a little fuzzy around the edges. When you are using a Holga, you're letting go of almost all control and opening up your photography to chance. You can never be quite sure what light is going to be recorded on the film. Each roll has a few surprises on it. It's great for landscape photography as well a photographing people. 

I bought mine here from the International Center of Photography. I like the one that allows you to shoot at 1/125 of a sec and also has a bulb setting for long exposures. More to come on the Holga.

Pat

Education Rally

Around 2,500 people attended a rally at the state capitol Wednesday in support of education. The rally started as Gov. Jan Brewer gave a speech to the legislature where she described her budget plan. 

Click here to see a slideshow from the rally. Click here to read the story.

Viola's Dance

This was from a real sweet story I worked on last week. Viola Fallon, 92, loves to dance. For years she was involved in organizing dances as well as teaching others to dance. Last week her hospice nurses arranged for her to be able to dance with a man one more time at an Arthur Murray Dance Studio. Her feet didn't miss a beat. It was inspiring to see. You can read the story here.

All-Star Game at 1/15th of a Second

The NBA All-Star game was in town recently. We covered the game with five shooters and an on-site editor. There were a ton of photographer shooting the game. There were two rows of photogs on the base boards and remotes hung from every available spot. My job was to shoot from the concourse and seating levels with a long lens. After I had taken a bunch of action photos I decided that I'd try and make something different so I slowed the shutter down to 1/15th of a second and panned along with the players. It's nice when things work out.

Sedona Gigapan

This is a example of something new I am playing with called a Gigapan. I shot this in Sedona, Ariz. The image is shot using a camera mounted to a robotic head. This image is made up of 36 individual photos. The photos were stitched together using Gigapan stitching software. All together it's 213 megapixels. What I like about the Gigapans, is that because of the detail you can really zoom in close and explore a picture. See if you can find the chapel build on the mountain. 

You can go to http://share.gigapan.org  to explore more examples. The Gigapan site has a really cool application where you can take snapshots within the Gigapans and share them with other users. There is a whole art to finding the picture within the picture.