Four years ago, Tito Dupret's portfolio covered the 8% out of the total of the World Heritage sites. Today, with 226 panographies available and 72 on postproduction, the 25% of the places is available on WHTour.org.

Tito has been unfatiguable, traveling the world up and down, from Israel to Tanzania, from Uganda to Kenya, passing by Lebanon, Oman and Ethiopia, to name just a few.

click here to view World Heritage Tour

How did this never ending experience change the man? Where does the stamina come from? We asked him, even more curious since when we discovered that - in his dwellings - he had fallen in love and married!

How did you manage to be on such a important mission and still cultivate a private life? I heard that you recently married, congratulations.
Thank you, Marco! Actually it's totally mixed. I met Bijuan Chen in China while on the project and now we're living 24/7 and 365/52 on the road. We're currently...nomad people. Our life is between hotels and buses, and now we're just out of 9 months in China for post-production and a long-delayed wedding ceremony in her village.

post-production in Zhongshan, China

Currently we're in Indonesia where we work, and where we are spending our honeymoon as well! By the way, I've also learned that you'll be a father! How wonderful, it's my turn to congratulate you and the happy mother ! Give the child a Tibetan name!

How was the ceremony?
Well, quite different from what we are used to. No religious ceremony, no discourses. The village and the family were invited to have a two days festival, in which the menu consisted of one pork bought alive and prepared on the first morning, 50 kg of ducks, 50 kg of chicken and 50 kg of fish. Hundreds of different dishes, and the people participated even by collecting the necessary cutlery, by cooking, by alighting the fires. A lot of red all around you, and rivers of beers and rice alcohol!

wedding in Xubu, China

Seven Years on the road with the most incredible panoramic project. Can you tell us more about the genesis of the project since the beginnings? How has it evolved, did it change you and/or your vision of the world ?
Most incredible...I am very flattered but the thing is that panography is an incredible way to document the World Heritage List; counting the most incredible places. I am no boss of any "would be" incredible project. Instead I am a happy servant manipulating fabulous technology the best I can.
The genesis...you've to go back to 2001, when the Taliban destroyed the giant Buddhas in the valley of Bamiyan in Afghanistan. I was angry...and less than 6 months later I was off.

Since then I have been on the site and can't forget my first feelings: it was like loosing somebody from my own family. It may sound unbelievable but that's what one develops with long-term traveling (which began for me long before WHTour.org): a real and near concern on what happens on the planet. Traveling is having a love affair with earth. And the further I travel, the bigger is that love.
Of course I am a changed man and still on the move. I am either impressed by what has been achieved or by my own ignorance on all the things I run into. This adventure is a little miracle, permanently followed by another one: it is so strange to witness that I have no idea what will be next and don't even want to know. I am very trustful. No worries, just hope.

Which were the key milestones of the project ?
No key milestones but people. In the backstage I have very important and reliable people like Matthieu Baudoux and Benoît Broekmans in Brussels. Later came Martha Flach Wilkie at the World Monument Fund, then Conn Nugent at the J. M. Kaplan Fund, both in New York. And of course the magical online pals who I know for years now and who have made a deep impression on me and therefore on my work : Hans Nyberg and you, Marco and Michelle Bienas at VRMag, Liz Tjostolvsen at Realviz, Gilles Vidal (the best and most creative panographer I know) and the myriad of inspiring people who have offered any sort of help : translation, donation, lodging, food, etc...

at base camp of Everest in Sagarmatha

Recently Whtour underwent a major redesign. Which are the most important new features?
Yet another key person has landed on the project : Benjamin Toussaint. His dedication and experience made many dreams come true: the web site is now in French as well as inEnglish. It has low and high resolution access in order to create a communication line with members. It also has print and cube modes. There is a search engine and RSS feeds. And there is also a fabulous tool which forms behind the scene, in order to upload the media, identify and locate it along with maps. A lot could still be done, but there were so many improvements already!

Can you share some stats about the content and the visitors of the website ?
Wow... These numbers seem very useful but their interpretation is quite tricky... At least I know that the US and France are highly first in the number of visitors. But I need more time to get into this to answer your question. We're back in since 2 months after 15 months of complete silence. I also confess being a bit reluctant on these stats: I still hope that my work will be most useful for the future than for today -- when it will be compared with images in a hundred years from now...

Oh! Something interesting: there are written descriptions about sites and about some images now. Before there was none, just the title in the caption. But so far only one person has clicked on the 'i' for information. I can't tell if he/she read the popup it generates ;-)
I guess I need to understand better how people browse the website. Maybe it's not clear or visible enough? Actually, a real challenge of this website is that one must read it horizontally (panoramically) and not vertically like 99.99% of all websites are.

at the colosseo in Roma

What are the advantages in subscribing to WHTour ?
Get access to fullscreen and cube modes, and get notified when new panographies are put online (at least one new world wonder is available weekly). My motivation here is to get a communication line with the most interested visitors of the web site -- those who subscribe themselves. This is a new adventure for me. I was happy hiding behind the camera, but I feel now ready to talk a bit as well. We'll see where it's going.

What can be done to support your journey/project ?
Please, please, please donate on the web site! It's terrible but for now, online donations don't even pay for the bandwidth... Actually I find myself trapped : this is institutional work and people think that it is paid by institutions. Well, it probably should be but it's not at all. I am working hard to find new sponsors to come along with the heroic J. M. Kaplan Fund, which is generously supporting the adventure since 5 years now. But while waiting and hoping for more support, web visitors are really, really, really needed.

Sumatra, at Gunung Leuser National Park, tracking the Orang-utan

There are many photographers out there having shot world heritage sites, can they contribute publishing their panos on your site? If yes, will this mean you will not shoot this particular location since you already have the coverage?
Ah! Another tricky question I've been thinking about it for some time now. Many problems arise. Bijuan and I are already both more than full-time on the job. Welcoming other panographers would bring more work: handle the files, make community rules, listen to exceptions, manage copyright, check the relevance and correctness of each contribution, discourage the manipulation of colors-saturation-contrast-vibrance...
I don't know why, but it seems that photographers dislike reality and always feel the need to "improve" it. WHTour.org is documenting things as they are. For a long time, I also thought : "who am I to judge anybody's else work?". Only today I'm beginning to feel confident enough about my own work.

Sometimes I indeed receive an email on that question of yours. Never from professionals: they usually already have their own thing, their own website, their own web statistics. Semi-pros and highlighted amateurs are usually more interested in some publicity and/or money for their work (and even though I understand, I don't even have any for Bijuan or myself!). Amateurs have great stuff but it's just one or two images, which is not enough.

Proposing some time ago a WWP event with the World Heritage as a theme has been part of the answer to your question and reminds me that this question truly bothers my thoughts since a very long time now! I am very happy with what happened then by the way. So...at the end I don't know. I am completely open to all possibilities but need time and budget. I still think that to create an external link to the best web sites is currently the right solution. It was available before but needs to be implemented in this new web site. For people without a web site, I encourage them to show their work on viewAt.org which I like much.

On the commercial side, your imagery would be very interesting for the advertising industry as well as as content for travel oriented websites.
Mmmm... This is correct for successful and well-known landmarks : Angkor, Petra, the Pyramids... There are plenty about these already, and neither advertisers nor travel operators miss anything, I think. And again, I don't focus on the dream-side of these places but the visual information with the minimum manipulation of the files.

Furthermore, most of my work is made of ruins, monuments and natural parks that many have never heard of and won't ever go. This is the very reason why I keep going there: to document and share. Just that. My structure is also a non-profit organization. So no business but educational purposes only.
Finally, my primary audience is made of schools and people unable to travel for whatever reason : money of course but also a handicap or a sickness. For example many people miss many things because they are high-sick. I can't tell you how much I sweat on mountain paths myself ;-)

Are there licensing possibilities? If yes what are the restrictions in order not to conflict with the WhTour mission?
Yes, there are many licensing possibilities : exhibitions, conferences, meetings, debates, films, TV, DVDs, planetarium, IMAX. All these can be fabulous educational tools and any production will help financing the remaining 75% of the WH List...

What equipment do you use to create these outstanding panoramas ?
Shooting : Nikon D200 (dreaming for the D3) + the 10.5 mm on a monopod. I have never used a pan-head. Post-prod: Stitcher Unlimited for exporting in photoshop format and finally "hand-blended". Big job but the cleanest way to me. And it's quicker than "smart-blending" actually.

Now and to my happiest surprise, a great news is the latest announcement by 360Precision with its new Atome pan-head. This seems to be exactly what I need.

What is the resolution of the source material from which you create the interactive panoramas ?
Original files back to 2001 are 9000+ by 4500+ pixels. Today they're 11000+ by 5500 pixels. Of course I don't need that big to generate the online movies. I am following WWP settings, given on their website and find these to be an excellent value.

What do you think about Gigapixel imaging?
I love it of course! Every technology that can help conservation and communication is most welcome. On the topic, soon I'll post several hundreds meters of reliefs, carved on murals at Bayon and Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Today I am just out for four days, doing that at Borobudur in Indonesia as well.

What are your plans for the future ?
To further the mission as far and as long as possible. Gods of money and health will tell!
This September, I'll be in Montreal thanks to Monique Savoie, trying their structure at the Société des Arts et Technologies (SAT). I can't wait working with Luc Courchesne on the panoscope. They've just acquired at Elumenati an inflatable 18 feet dome as well. I'm thrilled, and my hope is to build an educational program about World Heritage with extraordinary interactive tools and features. We'll see and as usual, you'll be the first to know!

Links:
World-Heritage-Tour.org

Previous articles on Tito Dupret:
TITO DUPRET'S WORLD HERITAGE (VIRTUAL) TOUR
TOMB OF EGYPTIAN PHARAOH OPENED FOR VR PHOTOGRAPHER
STATUE OF LIBERTY, NEW YORK, IN VIRTUAL REALITY BY TITO DUPRET
THE GOLDEN TEMPLE OF AMRITSAR, INDIA
AN UPDATE ON WORLD HERITAGE TRAVELER AND PHOTOGRAPHER TITO DUPRET