Within the Manzanar National Historic Site is the Manzanar Cemetery. 71 years ago today Manzanar was the first of ten “relocation centers” built by the War Relocation Authority as ordered by Franklin D. Roosevelt following the attacks at Pearl Harbor. The order resulted in the forced relocation of over 120,000 Japanese Americans, two-thirds of whom were native-born American citizens.  They were deprived of their liberty and property without due process of law.

Over the next three years, 140 prisoners died at Manzanar, most were sent home for burial but 15 were buried there. The six existing sets of remains in Manzanar cemetery are: Three adult males in their early 60’s Matsunosuke Murakami, Minoru Kihara, Shinnojo Fukumoto, and two infants Noriyuki Arasuna, Midori Susan Furuya, and an unnamed stillborn infant in an unmarked grave.

In 1943 internee and Master stonemason for the Los Angeles Catholic diocese Ryozo Kado, along with block 9 residents and members of the Buddhist Young Peoples organization, constructed the Cemetery Memorial obelisk. The inscriptions on the monument were written by Manzanar’s Buddhist minister Rev. Shinjo Nagatomi. The three characters featured in this panorama translate as “soul consoling tower”.

Over a hundred and forty years ago, the Great Lone Pine earthquake struck on March 26, 1872. Historical evidence detailing the damage it caused in settlements and landforms near the epicenter, and the geographic extent to which noticeable movement was felt, leads researchers to estimate a Richter magnitude of 7.6 to 8 or greater — similar in size to the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Most buildings in Lone Pine were made from adobe brick and crumbled to the ground. Twenty-seven of the approximately 250-300 residents of Lone Pine were killed. Interred within a fenced enclosure are the bodies of 16 people who lost their lives that day.

This blog post marks a return to the Nethercutt Collection in Sylmar, California.  The collection features rare collectibles ranging from mechanical musical instruments and antique furniture to the true heart of the collection: over 250 American and European automobiles dating from 1898 to 1997.  To view a panorama from my previous visit to the Nethercutt and the interior of a 1937 Pierce Arrow trailer, click here.

The wonderful thing about the Nethercutt is that photography is permitted however on some days tripods and monopods are OK while on other days it is not. I think it depends on the security team but it’s worth calling ahead before visiting.

This panorama was particulary difficult to capture with tricky lighting and reflections everywhere. Marble columns, crystal chandeliers, painted ceilings all make up this beautiful Grand Salon Showroom of the 1910’s, 20s and 30s. On display are approximately 30 of the finest automoblies of that era. Duesenbergs, Cadillacs, Isotta-Fraschini, Delahaye, Minvera, Renault, Maybach, many other European and American built automobiles.

On a recent trip to the Bay Area, I went to see the spectacular Gaultier exhibit at the De Young in Golden Gate Park. Nearby, next to Spreckels Lake, is the Buffalo Paddock which is home to a herd of bison that live in an enclosed field.

Since you can’t really get close to the bison, this panoramic image is unremarkable as they appear teeny tiny in the distance due to the wide field of view of my Sigma 8mm fisheye lens.

What’s neat about this pano — at least to me — is the fact that there are spectators like myself viewing the animals and for one brief moment I was able to capture the moment with no resulting stitching errors! This was a serendipitous feat as I was just at the right place at the right time and for the few seconds it took to capture the image, nobody dared move!

Trust me: it is tremendously difficult to take panoramic images in public spaces with crowds. I mean, unless you’re Patrick Cheatham shooting for Starbucks with a group of professional models to provide background atmosphere by standing absolutely still, most people in a space will move around and when you’re shooting a consecutive series of images that panos require, well, it can be a problematic.

This is why you rarely see candid crowd panos although I must say I’m starting to see some very skilled panographers capture images from concerts such as Coachella and I can appreciate the challenges they had in producing a good image.

So to me, this is a pretty nifty panorama that captured the feel of the place complete with people!

Go me! 🙂