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! 🙂

Appending yesterday’s blog post is this panoramic image of the Bartlesville Community Center, a performing arts facility, located down the street from the Price Tower.

The Center was designed by William Wesley Peters, chief architect of Taliesin Associated Architects and son-in-law of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Just left of the American flag and west of the venue is a view of the Price Tower.

Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature tile

The Price Tower was originally intended to be built in Manhattan sometime in the 1920s but when the Great Depression struck, the project was shelved only to be adapted for the Oklahoma prairie in the 1950s.  It is the only extant skyscraper by Frank Lloyd Wright.

The building’s nickname “the tree that escaped the crowded forest” not only refers to the notion that it was plucked from the “crowded forest” of Manhattan skyscrapers and placed to stand alone on the wide open Oklahoma prairie but also to its design: the Price Tower is supported by a central “trunk” of four elevator shafts anchored in place by a deep central foundation, much like a tree is by its taproot. Nineteen cantilevered floors fan out from this central core, like the branches of a tree. The outer walls float off from the floors and are encased in patinated copper “leaves”.

Price Tower first opened in the mid-20th century as a multi-use building featuring business offices, shops, and apartments with oil tycoon Harold Price, its patron and primary tenant, keeping his corporate headquarters there. Today, the building operates as the Price Tower Arts Center, a civic art complex, focusing on art, architecture and design. Features include a museum, tours of the historic tower, a hotel and restaurant.

I arrived a half-hour before closing and would have missed an opportunity to view the interior of this building if it weren’t for Taylor Rasmussen, a fellow Wright enthusiast and photographer who also happens to be an employee at Price Tower. Seeing as I had come a fair piece distance to visit, Taylor graciously gave my sister and me a private tour.

Below: While most of the interior of the building is off-limits to cameras due to copyright restrictions, below is a click-through image to an indoor panorama of the upper loft of the Copper Bar located on the 15th floor that was shot with permission. It’s not my best pano as there are several stitching errors that I was unable to resolve. Normally I would just omit a pano like this from viewing except it’s the only one I’ve got and it shows the subtle triangular detailing of the red pigmented concrete floors.

While I was unable to actually explore the interior of the Colonial Fox Theatre during my recent visit, I was able to snap this pano of the parking lot where during the summer months the Colonial Fox Theatre Foundation presents “Friday Flix” a special series of outdoor screenings. It is a free event but donations are always appreciated and help with the organization’s efforts to restore the venue.

The Colonial first opened its doors on March 17, 1920 with over 2000 attending the premier. At least 1000 we’re turned away. Five hundred seats for the opening were sold for .50 cents with the remaining sold at .35 cents.

The first film in the new theatre was the 8-reel silent feature film “Everywoman” starring Violet Heming in search of “Love, deserted in turn by Modesty, Beauty, Wealth and Youth, but rescued by Truth and Devotion.”

The film was based on the stage play of the same name by Walter Browne and had been produced by the Paramount Artcraft Picture Corporation, the early parent company of today’s Paramount Studios.