We first introduced Tristan Shu in issue 27, when we presented to our readers the action packed panoramic images he had shot. He had announced great enhancements and one important fact: that - finally - he had become a full time photographer. Actually, as time passed by, we got curious and we wondered if he had started shooting within a Rugby match or - even better - while bungee-jumping. Poking into his website, we discovered that he was as active as ever, always shooting full throttle.

We had a nice conversation with him, and we discovered several interesting things.

What happened since the last article on VRmag in November 2006?
I had a son of whom I spent hours taking portraits of. No VR of him yet… But definitely the best thing that ever happened to me so far.
I spent a lot of time improving my photography techniques, VR and classical work. I always wanted to be a full professional photographer, not only a VR/panoramist. Sometimes I’m working hard to find new techniques in the VR world, and sometimes I’m off it, not shooting VR for a while – unless I get clients for it of course…

I’ve also spent a lot of time looking at the evolution of VR players, and playing/coding with them… at the moment my two favorites are DevalVR for the incredible smooth fullscreen display (but unfortunately viewers need to install a plugin, and its pc only – even though Fiero is working on the mac version), and FPP because of the incredible development possibilities (thank you Denis for your open architecture) and the ubiquity of flash. I can't wait though to have it, using hardware acceleration like DevalVR is doing…Once again two individuals fully committed to their plugin, with a great community behind them (Deval and FPP forums are filled with great individuals always helping the newbies).

I always thought that VR is an incredible media, and a fantastic marketing tool for customers, way underused on the web considering its potential.
So I tried to figure out why, and I currently work on those directions to promote my work:

- Technically, Flash is definitely the way forward, as more people will be able to access the contents without downloading anything

- It’s always impressive to see how easily a newcomer (of whatever computer experience) can be lost in front of a VR… so the experience has to be thought again to be as intuitive as possible. I’ve tried to turn my VR work as much as I could into an interactive entertaining experience…

- New high quality contents. Either in the real estate world, with the use of HDR techniques (and lately the incredible Enfuse), or in the action world, with new techniques/ideas…

Did you apply to new VR techniques?
I’ve been continuing my previous work on the sequences and the motion freeze, with new skiing, paragliding, rafting VRs.

Nowadays I use lots of toys to help me achieve what I have in mind, like poles for example:

- I’ve got a 7 meters high custom lighting tripod who’s been turned into a giant, steady tripod. It allows me to reach new heights and new possibilities for example the snowboarder/skier on the rail sequence.

click here to view Freestyle snowboard, Robin Ledieu in Val d'Isere winterpark

Thanks a lot to Michel Thoby who designed it… I really recommend any VR photographer to read Michel articles on his website, they’re an incredible wealth of information.

- I use the mrotatorHD from Agnos. It’s very light, and I can go anywhere with it, skiing, walking, etc…

I actually broke my Agnos pole using it horizontally to reach new viewpoints, like in the rafting VR.

click here to view rafting VR

I finished killing it for the vanoise express pano, and I had to use a specially designed pole for this assignment.

click here to view vanoise express

- Poles allow me to do semi aerial panos, but for full aerial ones, I use helicopters.

click here to view Aerial view of les Arcs, summer

click here to view Aerial view of les Arcs, winter

The pilot stays stationary and rotates the copter on its center, while I’m shooting through the open door. Not as easy at it seems, despite the fact the parallax errors are considerably reduced because of the distance you’re shooting at, if you got a little bit of wind, the helicopter will spin a lot off axis. I’ve been lucky to team up several times with an excellent pilot who understands fully what’s needed.

I’ve always been a huge fan of Romuald Vareuse's work (Romuald was guest artist in VRMAG) and same for him he’s got a good pilot friend that he shoot all his panos with, the complicity with the pilot is definitely a key success factor.

- For the stiching/editing, I use ptgui, smartblend, and photoshop cs3.

Your 360°-Xperience VR portal for les Arcs is a huge project. Can you tell us something more about it?
It’s a big project that’s been done for the ski resort of les Arcs over a year (winter and summer). I’ve been working shoulder to shoulder with my good friends of the web agency Peau de Banane, for this project. They designed the zoomify geolocalisation map – it was no easy task - and did all the developments.

Les Arcs wanted to show to their internet visitors how incredibly big their ski area is (the 3rd or 4th largest in the world), and all the activities you could do there – especially during summer. They try to promote as much as they can their activities. As they were very enthusiastic with the project, i’ve been able to do a lot of premiere with them. For example the arcabulle chairlift VR, the freeriding VRs, the rafting/hydrospeed, the Vanoise express etc. To tell the truth, I even had to refrain them a little, they were getting carried away on the Action VRs, starting to think everything was doable!

click here to view Freeride skiing, Baptiste Blanc on Les Arcs Aiguille rouge

I used a lot of different tools to shoot the 39 VRs of the project: giant poles, custom made handles for the paragliding panos, etc… two camera bodies were used a Canon 5D with a shaved Nikkor 10,5, and a Canon 20D with a Sigma 8mm for the Sequences. I’ve also been using Agnos gear as much as I could: I absolutely adore their lensring and in general their products (the tcp heads and the mrotatorH in particular). And they’re very friendly and always listening to any new ideas… I can't recommend them enough !!

And what about the Luxor temple virtual tour?
This one was actually not a client assignment, I did shoot this tour in 2005 as I was visiting the country. The files were sleeping on my hard drive, but as I was working on my new website, I thought that it would have been interesting to use this tour to show what I could do for real estate tours, instead of the classical hotel / apartments / chalets tours you can see in my dedicated gallery. A good example of how VRs can be used to showcase a place where people would like to go.

click here to view second hypostyle of the Luxor temple

Egypt is definitely a fascinating destination, and I hope people who watch this tour will be wanting to see it for real! It was shot at the time with a Canon 20D, a Sigma 8mm and a manfrotto 303 Sph. I’m glad I didn’t do all the edit/stitching at the time, because this tour definitely benefited from my latest stitching/photoshop retouching techniques (not an easy task those nights panos!).

Which are the professional services you provide today?
As a professional photographer, I shoot mainly 4 types of photos: interiors/architecture, action, lifestyle/portraits, landscape/nature. You can find examples within the portfolio on my website VRs are for me another tool in my "photography bag", beside panoramic and classical work. I’m based in the French alps, but can move worldwide for assignments, that’s one (of the many) reason why I love my job.

Photography is my work and passion - what I do for a living, either financially or spiritually. I love to explore new horizons, learn new techniques, and I don’t want to specialize in one discipline/area only, considered that there're so many things / places / people to discover.

My special thanks go to Romuald Vareuse and Michel Thoby. Their constant help, ideas and support are invaluable. They’re my VR role models.

Links:
TristanShu.com/
VR portal for les Arcs
Luxor temple virtual tour

Previous articles in VRMAG:
ACTION PACKED SPORTS PANOS