NWHPC Competition: Horizon

Here are my two entries into the June NWHPC competition, Horizon. Well, actually they are the same photograph presented two different ways.

I expected the circular pano to be dismissed out of hand as a gimmick and the print quality on the second was not very good so neither received much attention. I was not expecting much recognition other than what I got from those wanting to know how it was done.

The only disappointment was that during the critique the name of the circular pano was not mentioned. To me the message of an image is more important than the technical aspects. To be truthful, when I first did the circular pano I considered it a gimmick. I shared another one done earlier at Lake Houston with my friend Paul Saltzman. His comment was that he could see no value in the image beyond a technical trick, gimmick. I could not argue the point.

However, after working on a number of circular panos I realized that where ever I went, I carried the horizon with me and that it is constantly changing, which to me gave the technique some small degree of validity and therefore a name for the image "My Horizon, June 2nd 1:45 PM." I think much of the point of the circular pano is missed without the title.

The title of the long pano since it was 360 degrees was "Horizon Thin and Fine," from a Milay poem, "With my eyes I traced the line, of the horizon thin and fine, straight around till I had come, back to where I started from." A little cryptic I know.

I know this is too small to see details like at eleven-o'clock is an artist painting the downtown skyline and at about eight-thirty, Janet is sitting in the shade of a Magnolia tree waiting for me to do the shot.