Chris Ramirez must be getting used to the questions and stares the ten Canon S60s mounted on a 10-foot high tripod elicit. By now, most people in the VR community are familiar with freelance photographer Chris Ramirez and the EventCam, which he used to capture moments from the recent Republican and Democrat conventions for The New York Times.

RNC - click here to view fullscreen	DNC - click here to view fullscreen

I think it’s fair to state that the use of immersive photography for such a high-profile event by The Old Gray Lady is one of the most exciting developments in VR this year. All boats rise with the tide and whatever you call it – Virtual Reality, immersive imaging, 360-degree panorama, QTVR – it hit the mainstream in 2004. ( Travis Fox used QTVRs for his coverage of the war in Iraq for washingpost.com in 2003.) And kudos to Kaidan president Jim Anders for seeing and seizing an opportunity. He contacted Chris after seeing his panoramas of Condoleeza Rice’s swearing in for the 9/11 Commission. Together they brought the EventCam to fruition and it has been garnering interest since: the Smithsonian has asked for it when it becomes obsolete.

Chris Ramirez is an award-winning photojournalist and a regular contributor to The New York Times. His photographs have been published in Life’s Year in Pictures, Time Magazine, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Daily News, Newsday, Playbill, The Associated Press and Adweek. His other clients include The Eifman Ballet, Merchant Ivory Productions, John Hopkins University, Banana Republic and the U.S. Postal Service. Chris has also served as a faculty member of the Eddie Adams Photography Workshop for the past six years.

In addition to panoramic coverage at both conventions, The New York Times has used Chris’ immersive panoramas to document the arrival of the Queen Mary at New York Harbor and president Reagan lying in state at the Capital Rotunda.

Chris, you’re a regular contributor to the New York Times, and your work has appeared in prominent publications such as Life and Time Magazine; can you tell us a little about yourself and your background?

I grew up in the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City, but now live in upstate New York. I’ve been a photojournalist for nearly 15 years, and have worked at small weekly newspapers as well as a larger daily. I’ve been a freelance shooter for about six years, and strive to be versatile and responsive to my editors and to readers. I’m continually fascinated by new ways to capture photographs and present them, be it in newsprint, in magazines or on-line.

When and how did you start to experiment with VRs and what was the equipment and software you used?

In 1999 I was shooting an annual report for a precious metals corporation, and the client asked that I shoot “something wide” in one of their silver factories.

I decided it would be interesting to give them both a wide print version along with a 360 degree immersive image for their website. I used the Kaidan Panoramic Tripod head, Apple QuickTime Authoring Studio (stitching software) and Canon EOS 1 w/28mm lens. At the time we had to keep the file size down to 400k for web delivery. (Small files didn’t allow for zooming into the images and picking up detail and content. With broadband I feel comfortable producing a 3mb file that gives a decent amount of zooming and adds to the overall tonality and sharpness. It seems the load time varies from 3 seconds to 10 seconds.)

Chris, you’ve also been a faculty member for the Eddie Adams Photography Workshop; can you provide us with some information on this workshop?

Founded in 1988 by Alyssa and Eddie Adams, the Workshop is an annual October gathering at his farm in Jeffersonville, N.Y. Established professionals and 100 invited students gather for four days of shooting, editing and learning. It is tuition free, and the teaching staff is all-volunteer. I was a student in 1995, and I’ve been on the faculty for the past six years.

What inspired you to use the panorama format for the swearing in of Condoleezza Rice at the 9/11 hearings (I believe this was your first use of panoramas for the NYT)? What was the paper’s response to your initial suggestion to use this format?

It was a rare and historical moment, and I was drawn to the idea that the National Security advisor would literally be surrounded - by photographers, by victims’ families, by the commission itself – and I wanted to show that. A panorama was an ideal approach to document that moment.

You’ve received a lot of attention in QTVR/panorama photography circles for your recent convention coverage; what was the reaction to your innovative use of panoramas outside of this particular community?

People just think it’s flat-out cool. Editors, especially on-line editors, like that they can present news events in a new way, especially when they’re coupled with audio. Readers are simply enjoying the immersive aspect of the photos.

Can you outline the process that you and Jim Anders of Kaidan went through to develop the EventCam?

My pano of Condoleezza Rice drew Jim’s attention. He contacted me, we met, and we started talking about how panoramas could be used to shoot more hard news assignments.

My major concern was the long capture time that can occur with conventional multi-shot panoramas. In addition to the practicality of 10 or 20 second capture sessions where there is movement involved; the time lag means that the resulting image is a collage of several moments and therefore doesn’t depict a true moment in time. To apply panoramas to photojournalism, I needed a device that would capture the entire scene simultaneously.

For some time, Jim had been contemplating the value of having several cameras within one head, and as cameras were getting smaller and mega pixels getting larger, this seemed possible. His idea was to form a cluster of cameras in a circle, all synchronized to shoot with the single squeeze of a cable release.

Meanwhile, I floated the idea of a high resolution single shot device to Lonnie Schlein at New York Times Digital, which agreed that such a device would be perfect for shooting the upcoming Democratic and Republication National Conventions. (The print file size of a 360-degree EventCam panorama is just over 100mb.)

Canon USA, meanwhile, generously agreed to sponsor the EventCam, and provided eighteen PowerShot S60 cameras (the EventCam currently uses ten.) The camera was perfect because of its compact side and wide-angle capability.

Do you have any plans to use the EventCam in the near future?

Absolutely. Most recently it was used at the Republican convention, and I used it during a recent New York Times “Travel” assignment to Newport, R.I. Next week I’ll be shooting the Bahamas, documenting the recent hurricanes’ effect on the local communities and the travel industry.

There has been some discussion on VR groups about the necessity of the Event Cam; do you think it is imperative to capture a historical scene at that exact moment (i.e. with multiple cameras recording at the same instant) versus taking a series of shots within a close timeframe?

For hard news photography, yes, and that’s because of the strict ethical constraints placed on hard news photojournalism. A series of shots, though effective, doesn’t represent an actual moment as it occurred and is, essentially, a collage of several moments stitched together. So the resulting “moment” never really happened. For panoramas to be adopted by the hard news community, it’s critical that they capture a single instant.

As a freelance photographer, what type of situation do you find the most appropriate for suggesting panorama photography for your clients, and are your clients typically receptive to the idea?

I truly believe that panos can enhance photo coverage of more and more news assignments, offering content and detail beyond the capabilities of traditional still photos.

Feature news opportunities are a natural fit, and include everything from travel to interior design to environmental portraits.

For hard news panoramas, I look for situations where I’m surrounded by people, action or content and where dead space will be nonexistent or minimal.

Panoramic photography has been around, in digital form, for at least a decade, but it’s only been recently that major newspapers have begun using this technology. In your view, what was the catalyst for this shift?

I believe, quite simply, that it was the advent of broadband and the ability of online readers to see the pictures.

Given your unique vantage point in working for mainstream publications, what is your view of the future role of panoramic photography in the news media?

My hope is that panos will no longer be viewed (by some) as a novelty or a gimmick, but will be embraced as yet another way to present news and information to the pubic

(Chris Ramirez uses Apple QuickTime VR Authoring Studio and Realviz Stitcher on a Macintosh 12-inch G4 Powerbook. He prints on the new Canon image PROGRAF W6200 wide format printer.)

Other articles:
Chris Ramirez Takes Panoramas To New Heights
Email: chris[at]ramirezpix[dot]com