The 1999 workshops programme at Duckspool
got off to a great start with Mike Westmoreland’s workshop covering ( literally ! ) panoramic photography and immersive imaging. Immersive imaging essentially means using software such as Photovista, Spin and Reality Studio ( ably demonstrated by The Full Moon Group ) to produce interactive ‘ virtual reality ‘ images and ‘ Photobubbles ‘ which can be published on the internet. The workshop stated with Mike showing his own work, including some stunning ten foot long panoramas done on old Cirkut swing lens cameras and talking about his involvement in photography. He originally studied book illustration and became interested in unconventional ways of illustrating the margins or the spine of a book.
When he took up photography in the early sixties with a 35 mm SLR, he found that it couldn’t portray the world in the way that he wanted it to. As he put it : " perhaps my decisive moment came in London’s Hyde Park one summers afternoon in 1966 …standing by the bank of the Serpentine I was fascinated by the hundreds of empty deckchairs on the opposite side which had been abandoned by the lunchtime crowds. It needed a very wide angle shot to get them in, which was totally ineffective because they only took up half a millimetre of negative height." After trying larger and larger cameras, Mike felt that he had reached an impasse before remembering a big rotating black box known as the Cirkut Camera.

Mike also introduced us to the history of the panorama in art and the work of photographers using this approach, such as Eugene Goldbeck ( best known for his awesome group shots which often featured thousands of people, all perfectly arranged). Josef Sudek, Alfred Hind Robinson, Jacques-Henri Lartigue, Art Sinasbaugh and Lois Connor are also well worth checking out if this approach to photography takes your fancy. There’s also Sam Taylor-Wood’s work for the Turner Prize last year, which was shown at the Tate. Chinese landscape painting has used the panorama for more than 2,000 years and it was through looking at examples of this that I had begun to develop a serious interest in panoramic photography.

We had the opportunity during the workshop to use some special tripod heads and panoramic cameras such as the Fuji 617,the Noblex and the Be Here Lens ( distributed by Full Moon ),which produces a 360 degree view on a single frame of film. This can then be ‘unravelled’ using software such as Reality Studio. We were also shown self constructed cameras which are rather less pricey ! A 120 mm Angulon, for instance, can be cheaply obtained compared to a new Super Angulon and will cover the 6 x 17 cm format easily. Another good option is a panoramic back on your existing camera, such as the 24 x 58 mm backs available for Bronicas and Mamiyas, or a 6 x 12 cm rollfilm back on a 5 x 4 inch camera (Keith Canham is also hoping to make or source a 6 x 17 cm back for his 5 x 7 inch camera) which will cost about £500.