wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Diversity pano shooting
Keith Martin 2009-Mar-22 10:49:00
Two more days of shooting time for the current event. If you haven't
shot anything yet, grab your gear and go for it!
Yesterday I headed into Whitechapel, an old part of inner London, to
shoot my 'diversity' panorama. I wanted to capture a pano in the
street market that lines the high street, with the 'Gherkin'
building, one of the iconic modern structures in London's financial
district (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30_St_Mary_Axe), in the
background.
Shooting proved interesting. As I expected, some stall holders were a
little edgy about having someone with a camera and tripod hanging
around. Wearing my heavy-duty and well-worn leather biker jacket
helped me look both unofficial and not a pushover, but two different
people still approached me directly to find out what I was doing. It
wasn't a problem, but it was definitely a robust and self-protective
environment.
The lighting was a challenge; it was late afternoon, and the sun was
shining along the street from the direction of the Gherkin building.
With the combination of bright light and slight haze, that structure
was all but lost from visibility. Bracketing was out of the question;
there was far too much movement of people all around me. (My
favourite challenge! :-) I ended up exposing for the main
ground-level shaded light levels and letting the brightest parts of
the sky bleach out. However, the cultural diversity of the people all
around me more than made up for the loss of showing that financial
diversity contrast.
I shot three panos in different positions. I'll stitch them all (if
they all work out) and choose the right one for this theme. It is
going to take a fair bit of work; I need just six shots around with
my current setup, but the one I'm about to stitch has 20 different
horizontal shots because there was so much movement of people around
me. Finding the right images to merge so I don't cut people off will
be a serious exercise.
I really enjoy shooting for WWP themes... it pushes me into a highly
active consideration of different pano possibilities. I'm finding
that it also pushes me into a more social documentary style of work,
which I find fascinating.
k