Banquet of the Infinite: It's Complicated

Is anything ever simple? Well, less often than I would like to admit, especially when it comes to my panoramic photography. For that creative quest, I routinely embrace the school of thought that believes that it is better to seek forgiveness than permission. So, how is that working? Well, it varies.

When I first started taking spherical panoramas, some thirteen years ago, I sought multi-dimensional urban spaces since they offered wonderful spherical photographic opportunities and were relatively close by. Not yet fully confident of my emerging abilities and workflow, I simply wanted to keep a low profile, do my bit, and quietly depart. I would pre-visualize several possibilities, assemble my shot list, travel to my chosen site, scope out the environs, compose each scene, without making a scene, take my shots, and disappear, as if I had never been there. I practiced becoming invisible.

Anticipating a visually dramatic interior, I entered the Seattle Central Library's “Living Room” space. I acted like I was just browsing for books as I walked around looking for the best vantage point to compose my spherical panorama. I intentionally avoided the librarian’s help desk and set my tripod up at the far end of a low bookcase about thirty feet away. I was partially hidden and my tripod was mostly shrouded from the librarian, all by design. Using my radio triggers, I clicked through my perimeter and up shots. However, I did not remain unobserved. The librarian discovered me as I was taking my final down shots. She approached and assertively announced, “We don’t allow photography.”

Just as I thought. So, I smiled and replied, “Oh, okay, I’ll just finish up and go.” Two more quick shots, and I collapsed my tripod. And then, I was out of there. It was a close call, but I got what I wanted. After post-processing, I was thrilled to see that the “Living Room” panorama had not only fulfilled, but exceeded, my creative vision. Subsequently, the final panorama received an ‘Editor’s Pick’ on 360Cities.net, the site that hosts my panoramas. It is among my most viewed, and I doubt there will be another like it.

The next day, feeling validated in my opportunistic approach, I strolled into REI’s Seattle Flagship Store and headed straight for the ‘Pinnacle,’ a vertical sport climbing peak housed in a glass-walled tower. I did not stop to ask for permission. I mean, who would I ask? A sales floor clerk? A cashier? My query would likely be received as a confusing request, and it might be all too easy for any employee to say, “No.” As I entered the glass box, I discovered to my delight that I was alone. Feeling lucky, I quickly scouted the perimeter for the best vantage point, set up, and took my shots. Mr. Invisible. I then disappeared from the store. So far, my stealthy approach was working, and I decided to continue.

I wanted to pursue a more dynamic venue and headed for my favorite fish vendor, City Fish, in Seattle’s Public Market. They were busy with customers and did not raise an eyebrow as I approached and set up my tripod. I acted like this was the most natural thing imaginable, all the while wearing my mental invisibility cloak. I started shooting. Customers conferred and bought fish. No one seemed to notice my presence. Or, if they did, no one was either curious or cared. I kept shooting. As I observed those around me, which I do with all shoots that include people, I took extra frames, safety shots that would provide more opportunity to select the best expressions. Once again, I bagged a great panorama, all on a busy day at the Public Market. I wondered, would everything be this easy? Ha, ha! I did not know.

One day, while scouting Seattle’s Volunteer Park, I ran into a guy getting dressed in a self-made suit of medieval-era armor as he prepared to join others in a role-playing event on the grassy fields of the park. Intrigued, I watched as a host of costumed combatants engaged in energetic mock battle scenes. I stood transfixed, fascinated by their aggressive choreography. Their outfits ranged from laughably lame to impressively creative. Curious, I asked who led the group and later, through their leader, received his permission to photograph his unruly band of warriors.

So, on a subsequent battle day, having secured permission, by proxy, from 36 costumed ‘Dargarth Warriors’, I began to construct my vision for a spherical panorama. Once I had their attention, I instructed them to form a circle around me and asked them to look fiercely at me and assume an intimidating battle pose. Unfortunately, few did. Hey, you can only art direct complete strangers to a limited degree. Get over it. Most young warriors just looked relaxed and amused as I rotated my camera around the human circle, clicking away, capturing them all. No one had any idea how my project would turn out. After completion, I became only a momentary fading curiosity before they returned to battle. Once the panorama was finished and uploaded, I sent the link to their leader, who quickly shared it with everyone. They had never been photographed together in such a way. Even though it was an imperfect first attempt at a panoramic group portrait, everyone who saw it loved it. That made me happy.

The Center for Wooden Boats on the south side of Seattle’s Lake Union looked like a charming potential subject. I have always liked photographing small workshops with their attendant purposeful clutter and the realization of a worthy project approaching completion. I took several panoramas of the dockside boats in the floating museum and then approached the restoration workshop. I had been to the amazing Museum of Flight Restoration Center in Everett, and taken several panoramas there, but had not yet encountered a woodshop like the one at the Center for Wooden Boats.

Rustic and enticing, it drew me in. I proceeded slowly, careful not to disturb the three craftsmen who were all heads down, each focused on some part of a project. I used what I call the ‘soft ask’ to get permission. “You guys don’t mind if I…” Nah. They did not mind, nor did they care. Relieved, I quietly captured the magic moments of their quiet work. There was no staging; everything was extemporaneous without any art direction. It was perfect, what I would call an intimate panorama. I loved it. I left, feeling ebullient.

That shoot turned out so well that when I learned the Center for Wooden Boats had another workshop boat shed on the north side of Lake Union, I headed up there and entered the anonymous, unsigned building. A group of three was intently engaged in replacing the bottom hull section of a vintage Egret Sharpie. I used the same ‘soft ask’ approach, and one of the guys recognized me from the earlier workshop shoot. He nodded yes. They were totally okay with me photographing the scene and returned to the task at hand as if I was not there. I liked that.

As they continued their labors, I composed my shot and meticulously took the frames that I needed. I did not rush as I wanted to be there. It was quiet and reflective in its industriousness, a peaceful place with purpose. Something magnetic urged me to stay. The lighting in the workshop that day reminded me of a medieval painting, a religious painting, that depicts the sanctity of meticulous craft. Reminiscent of Renaissance chiaroscuro lighting. Pure magic. The final image and the memory of that day are among my all-time favorites.

I soon planned a trip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley, specifically to Shea Wine Cellars, during their fall Pinot noir harvest. I imagined a dawn-to-dusk photo shoot in the vineyards and at the winery as the crew processed the harvested grapes. However, this concept would be a total non-starter without permission. Fortunately, I knew Dick Shea since I regularly traveled to his Oregon winery to purchase his fabulous Pinot noir. So, I called him up and made my pitch. He remembered that I had earlier taken a panorama inside the winery on a wine-buying trip. He seemed fascinated by the process. I explained that he could use thumbnail images on his website with descriptions and links to the spherical panoramas at 360Cities.net. Without hesitation, he invited me to his vineyard and winery to shoot whatever, wherever I wanted.

A photographer friend joined me, and we drove into the vineyard property, arriving before sunrise. The harvest supervisor, who thought we were part of the harvest crew, greeted us, ready to tell us where to begin picking. We laughed and told her we were only there to photograph the day. We soon found and conferred with Dick. He recommended a scenic hilltop location for the sunrise. We entered the vineyards with camera gear, a tall light stand, and a step ladder. I positioned the camera high above the vines as the sun peeked over a nearby hill and commenced my perimeter shots, each time mounting the step ladder to rotate the camera. We began the day with that sunrise shoot, shot throughout the day, and finished with a lovely Pinot noir sunset shoot. We returned to Portland, very late, totally bushed, and ready for the sack.

I returned early the next day by myself as the winemaking crew set up a conveyor to sort the grapes for the destemmer crusher sort or whole-cluster sort. The crew was completely absorbed and focused. The crush is serious business. They barely noticed me as I set up at the end of the conveyor and began my shoot. I took enough frames to make two distinct panoramas from different vantage points, and they are among my favorites. Pleased and now more confident in my ability to conceive and pull off a more extensive location shoot, I soon took my newfound passion to the next level.

Bertha was stuck, and that was a big problem. In the summer of 2014, Bertha, Seattle’s tunnel boring machine, had hit an unknown object and damaged its cutting head. It could not continue. The tunnel boring work abruptly halted, and work shifted to digging down, retrieving, and ultimately replacing the cutting head. As a former architect, the project had long intrigued me, but I had so far found no way to get access to the site through contacts from my friends in construction. I now saw this stuck situation as an opportunity. Surely, the project sponsors would be doing everything possible in the meantime to spin a positive PR story during the interim period.

I took a deep breath and cold-called the head person in the communications department at the Washington State Department of Transportation. I told her of my strong interest in the project and pitched my case that virtual reality panoramic photography would be a great way to showcase the project online. It would add more dimension to their current online presentation of the project. The WSDOT site already had still photo galleries on Flickr and construction camera pages with time-lapse images. My 360 panoramas would be a natural addition. Fortunately, my contact immediately visualized the possibilities and benefits and decided to explore how to make it happen.

After deciding how to proceed, my contact scheduled a photo shoot of the construction activity at the south portal, the launch site of the tunnel project, on August 7, 2014. She and an on-site WSDOT inspector signed me in, outfitted me, and escorted me through the job site during photography. The construction was in a closed site, so I had to sign in under their sponsorship, sign a liability waiver, wear boots, an orange safety vest, a hard hat, safety goggles, and gloves. Cumbersome. I just went with it. I now had access!

The shoot lasted only a scant two hours, during which I shot eight panoramas, five of which are featured in the virtual tunnel tour. A real speed shoot. Always racing forward, conceiving, and shooting on the run. Climbing ladders and navigating among construction materials and activity. I was grateful that my prior experience enabled my race-like tempo. Even though tense under the pressure, I found the experience strangely exhilarating. A second shoot at the north portal, where the tunnel emerges, took place with the same conditions on September 12, 2014. That shoot lasted about an hour and a half, during which I shot five panoramas, four of which were selected for the virtual tunnel tour.

Nine of my on-site panoramas were finally featured on the SR 99 Tunnel Project website. Each thumbnail image had a brief description and a link to the full spherical image hosted in my portfolio at 360Cities.net. Subsequently, 360Cities featured all my panoramas in a more extensive blog post about the project. Unfortunately, I did not return for any subsequent tunnel project shoots. Although I had hoped to shoot the retrieval and replacement of the cutting head, that did not happen. I was not invited back, and I did not press for it as the first shoots had taken quite a bit of effort on my part. And, there were a few bureaucratic hurdles involved, which I did not want to navigate again. Even though I was grateful for an unforgettable experience, I had achieved what I set out to do and knew it was time to move on to another subject.

Soon thereafter, I saw an article about a group of treehouse cabins in nearby Fall City. TreeHouse Point featured seven one-of-a-kind treehouses in an old-growth forest along the banks of a spring-fed river in Washington’s Snoqualmie Valley. The rustic wood treehouses were each nestled into an intimate canopy of conifers. They looked fairy tale magical to me, and I immediately thought about the panoramic possibilities. I could easily visualize what I could achieve once on site. I could feel my excitement welling up. Yes, I could do this. My panoramas would be stunning. The owner could feature thumbnails and the links to the 360s on his website. And, I would be doing it for free, just as I had the others, simply for my own personal satisfaction as a creative project. Fresh from my success with the SR 99 Tunnel Project, I figured my pitch would be compelling. So compelling that I would get a big “Yes.” Well, I was wrong. So wrong. I contacted the owner and made my pitch. He did not hesitate. He simply said, “No.” A ‘Hard No.’ No explanation. No opportunity to get beyond the no. Hmm… That set me back for a bit.

Of course, there are other variants of the rules and permissions model. One is the infamous ‘No Tripods’ stipulation. Know that the tripod is considered an essential tool for creating virtual reality panoramas when the final image is a stitched composite created from multiple high-resolution frames. A leveled tripod head assures continuity of ‘control points’ used to align and stitch the final image without errors. There are workarounds, but they are difficult nonetheless. And that is an understatement.

It was a rainy Sunday in Seattle, and we were visiting the soon-to-be-leave Intimate Impressionism collection on loan from the National Gallery of Art to the Seattle Art Museum. Also departing was Cai Guo-Qiang’s flying Ford sculpture Inopportune: Stage One, which hung in the lobby of the SAM. I always thought it might make an interesting photo subject, and since it was also leaving, I knew it was now or never.

Due to the 'no tripod' rules, I shot Inopportune: Stage One hand-held. I threw on my invisibility cloak, stepped to an opportune vantage point in the expansive museum lobby, and let a weighted cord drop from the nodal point of my camera lens to point an inch above the floor. I hand leveled the camera using a small spirit level as I held it as steady as I could and slowly rotated the camera lens around the stationary point on the floor, clicking off multiple shots, around, up, and down. I took extra safety shots to be sure I had enough to work with. I knew I would never return to see this exhibit again. I took enough exposures, but it was an absolute bitch to stitch, the worst ever, and required hours of Photoshop work in post to connect all the disconnects. Was it worth it? You need to ask? Totally! It is a visual memory of the ephemeral, and I have never tired of looking at it.

A few years ago, my wife and I visited my brother, who lived in Manhattan Beach, California. We visited the Getty Villa, an art museum in the Pacific Palisades, to experience ancient Greek and Roman art housed in a re-created Roman seaside home. Of course, the Getty had a 'no tripod' rule for both exteriors and interiors. I fell in love with the environment as a photo subject and took five handheld panoramas, all of which were a significant challenge in post-production. I was getting better at it, and I now accepted that most art galleries would enforce a 'no tripod' rule, if they even allowed any photography at all.

When some friends from New York later visited Seattle, we made a pilgrimage to the Frye Salon, which features nearly one hundred fifty paintings from the museum’s collections hung floor to ceiling, in a dramatic, immersive display the museum refers to as a salon-style hang. Curiously, the museum provides easels to allow visiting artists to paint in the gallery. However, tripods are not allowed, as if that makes any sense given the presence of several easels. So, I created my immersive panorama as a composite of hand-held shots. I had no other choice. I embraced the challenge and succeeded.

You might think that the hand-held approach is only for indoor exhibits with no tripod rules. Well no. Sometimes it is all about weight. Packed weight. In late July of 2017, my hiking partner Peter announced that we needed to get some time on snow. I agreed and off we went to Mount Rainier, where we hiked from the Paradise Trailhead to Camp Muir, the base camp for the Disappointment Cleaver Route to the summit. The hike gains 4,400 feet during its eight-mile round-trip distance. And the destination is at an elevation of 10,080 feet, requiring a strenuous ascent up the Muir Snowfield at a substantially higher altitude than most of our local hikes. I took my full-frame Nikon with the fisheye lens and left the tripod behind. Less carried weight, a calculated decision. And, even as I struggled to align the frames during my shoot at Camp Muir, I knew I had made the right decision.

My Camp Muir panorama is the only one hosted on 360Cities and may be the only one today of that place, anywhere. I am proud of that. As I have spent less time photographing urban environments and more time in the mountains, I am continually visualizing wilderness and alpine-themed spherical panoramas where none may yet exist. I like to think of them as ‘Photographic First Ascents.’ That inspires and motivates me greatly. I can take all the time that the weather allows. But sometimes that is not much.

Moving clouds are both the drama machines and the time keepers as they sweep unfettered across the sky, dictating what you may capture and successfully stitch, if you are attentive and skillful. Situational awareness in the wilderness is paramount, as nothing is static. A vast, multi-faceted, dynamic environment creates ever-evolving scenes of heartbreaking beauty while completely ignoring your presence. I do not have to pretend to be invisible. I just am. And, I never have to ask anyone for permission.

Links to the panoramas mentioned in this narrative are listed below. Click the links to open the images. For the most immersive viewing experience, open to full screen and scroll around and up, and down.

Asking for Permission:

Seattle Central Library “Living Room” space, Seattle, WA (5/23/2012)

https://www.360cities.net/image/seattle-central-library-living-room-space-seattle-wa

The REI Pinnacle, Seattle, WA (5/24/2012)

https://www.360cities.net/image/the-rei-pinnacle-seattle-wa

Pike Place Market, City Fish, Seattle, WA (6/11/2012)

https://www.360cities.net/image/pike-place-market-city-fish-seattle-wa

Dargarth Warriors, Volunteer Park, Seattle, WA (7/15/2012)

https://www.360cities.net/image/volunteer-park-dargarth-warriors-seattle-wa

Center for Wooden Boats, Boat Shop Interior, Seattle, WA (8/15/2012)

https://www.360cities.net/image/center-for-wooden-boats-boat-shop-interior-seattle-wa

Center for Wooden Boats, Egret Sharpie ‘Colleen Wagner,’ Seattle, WA (8/21/2012)