Early 2000's

Gigapans

At work in the Studio
At work in the Studio

Always looking for new ways to make pictures I was fascinated with the idea of super high resolution Gigapan photography. Using a digital camera on a robotic tripod mount and stitching software I could create super-high resolution pictures assembled from hundreds or thousands of digital pictures. The final product was uploaded to http://www.gigapan.com/profiles/billwesty/gigapans storing the interactive images that gain resolution as you zoom in. It was especially fun to have a person appear multiple times in the photos. http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/22284

Since the exposure took several minutes you could stand in one place while it captured you then move to another and then another. It was almost like the old time banquet cameras that captured a wide group with a swinging lens. Some joker always stood on the side where the exposure started and then ran behind the group to the other side before the camera took that part of the picture to appear twice in the final image. I loved how the gigapan created all sorts of artifacts of the process if subjects moved. This joker appears 4 times in this picture in my studio. The cat was in my lap all four times. The dog is under the desk in the center, he didn’t budge.