New 360-degree Interactive Panoramic Photos

What I love about 360-degree VR photography is that it lets you put people in places they might not otherwise experience. This week I did a panoramic photo of firefighters practicing taking a whole side of a car off with the Jaws of Life. They gave me a set of turnouts and a helmet to keep the shattered glass on the seat from cutting me. I wanted to shoot it from inside of the car because of the interesting point of view it provided. This was a really hard pano to stitch because I had to shoot it using a monopod rather than I tripod. Keeping the camera in one place was hard wit them pulling and moving the car. Also, this was shot while they were doing their drill. They are not posing.

Click here to see the interactive version.

This is the second time I have made a pano at night at a fair. This time I wanted the pano to start out looking up at lights. This pano is made up of seven frames. Each exposure was around six seconds. The long exposures pick up the movements of the rides and capture the mood of the fair at night.

Click here to see the interactive version.

Pat Shannahan

www.patshannahan.com

www.stepintoaz.com

@pshannahan

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

Concert Pano

CLICK HERE TO SEE INTERACTIVE PANO

Last night I tried doing panos from the pit at the Tempe Music Festival. The two main acts were Kid Rock and Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. It ended up being harder than I thought. Concerts have a lot of changing variables such as lighting and tons of movement. I wasn't abel to get a full 360 degree pano, but I was able to put together about 280 degrees of viewing. These were all shot on a monopod with a 8mm lens.

Pano from Tom's Thumb Trail

On Tuesday, I was able to hike the new Tom's Thumb Trail in the McDowell Mountains. The trail is part of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. A team of trail builders spent 6 months working on this trail, camping out at the base of the mountain. It's a good hike. It will get your heart pumping. The first pano is taken from about half way up. The second pano shows the view from next to Tom's Thumb.

Click Here to View 360-degree Interactive Photo

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.

Protest Panorama

Last night I was assigned to cover a war protest in Tempe. The protest was held on top of a bridge on ASU's Tempe campus that stretches over University Drive. I haven't done a pano in a while so I figured it might be a good chance to do one with people in it. Click here to check it out.