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SculpturWorx Studio in Houston, Texas is one of our favorite places to take photographs. As soon as we co-purchased a beta version Gigapan we started planning a SculptrWorx panorama. The parking lot of the studio is full of amazing concrete sculptures. Each of the 20-foot tall Presidents heads weighs 3½-tons. The Beatles sculptures in the background are nearly 40 feet high and weighing close to 5 tons each. The creator of these amazing sculptures is 82-year-old artist David Adickes, David is Houston’s unofficial “artist in residence.” His sculpture portfolio includes a 67-feet tall Sam Houston statue near Huntsville, “The Virtuoso” a 36-foot concrete sculpture of a cello player, and statue of an ex-girlfriend, who used to be a Playboy model. Adickes is also an excellent musician and writer. He made his living primarily through painting until 10 years ago. His oils and sculptures are displayed in ten major art museums across America and in many countries, as well as private collections. Click on this link to find out what it would be like to drive around Texas towing a 20 foot tall Obama head – Obama & Fab 4 - http://www.gigapan.org/gigapans/25213/ There is also a Flickr site dedicated to Adickes and his work- http://www.flickr.com/groups/davidadickes/pool/ The greatest public art of all time -The Bean - http://gigapan.org/gigapans/36622/ |
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This panorama is my answer to Kilgore's GigaPan, The View From Above, http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=7536. It is not as *grand* as his, but then Houston, Texas is not Bath, England.
Hand-held panorama of the Houston skyline comprised of 44 photos taken in a brisk wind, using a P&S camera, the SX110. Note: at the altitude of a six-story parking garage, the wind velocity was enough that this panorama could not have been accomplished had I not used image stablization since the camera was at maximum optical zoom. I went job-searching today and was told that for the for job I was seeking, I might as well go to the Moon! So, I went to the top floor of the parking garage and looked for the Moon, but all I found was this incredible sweeping panorama of downtown Houston all the way to Reliant Park and the Astrodome, and we also see the Texas Medical Center and Rice University:) As time goes by, there may be a *large* number of snapshots discovered in this hand-held panorama, stitched using the GigaPan Stitcher. |
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This is the pinnacle of my 2009 GigaPan effort :) 1000 feet up looking out on all of Houston ... what an experience, and I may be going back again.
From Wikipedia: The 75-story, 1,002-foot (305.4 m) tall JPMorgan Chase Tower of Houston, Texas, formerly the Texas Commerce Tower, is the tallest building in Texas, the tallest five-sided building in the world, and is the 45th tallest in the world. http://tinyurl.com/5qkn68 This hand-held panorama has been stitched using the GigaPan Stitcher software and the 26 photos comprising the panorama were taken with a Nikon D70 using a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens and a Heliopan UV filter. Additional details can be found under Stitcher Notes. |
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Another view of the beautiful Tamara can be seen here: http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=29457 Tamara, a beautiful woman form the State of Texas and her fiance, a footbal coach, pose in a panorama taken in Houston's Hermann Park by the reflection pool with a obelisk at one end and Sam Houston at the other. A great time was had by all and after we parted, they met with friends and continued having additional photos taken, which we may see again in an upcoming GigaPan. A view in Google Earth may be considered extraordinary. |
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An earlier GigaPan of Sam Houston Statue can be seen here: http://share.gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?id=9906
This should be entitled something like, "Continuation of Engle's Transportation Series, Past and Future," or a better one would be simply, "One Lucky Shot." Just playing around with taking hand-held photos using the SX110 and just accidentally caught two trains on either side of Sam Houston Statue. It is only 9 images, but the panorama looks cool and happened on a hot day in Houston, Texas. Using the robot, I do not believe I could have captured a moment like what we see above: 9 photos in less than a minute [left to right]. This is a reason to always try to carry a camera for those unexpected moments in time we call great panoramas. |
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In a snapshot, a falcon is seen banking out of a turn to fly straight at this GigaPanographer. A few blocks away are a few swans, but I was not aware of any other bird types until I saw this beautiful bird in flight. Two words... big and amazing and I was able to capture it as this scene unfolded. Note: This panorama was stitched from 37 photos taken with a Nikon D70 and aNikkor 18-70mm kit lens. The overall focus could have been a tad better, but the photos themselves were NEF or RAW converted to 300 dpi JPG files and then stitched with Stitcher version 0.4.4087 with the result that in the *Thinking* snapshot you can easily see the bike wheel spokes at a good distance from the camera lens. |
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The work of the American architect Ralph Adams Cram.
Unedited version, this is how it came out of the stitcher. Still trying to figure out how to make the Gigapan perfectly level... But at least I couldn't find major stitching errors (apart from some ghosting of the flags) in this one. |
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Note: an earlier GigaPan, http://www.gigapan.org/viewGigapan.php?id=30905 , did not include the panoramic view of Pasadena and the Houston Ship Channelarea as does this panorama.
Taken from the 24th floor of Hilton Americas Hotel: http://tinyurl.com/2og9ru An stunning view of Houston from Galena Park and the Houston Ship Channel area westward to the heart of the downtown area, especially so since there are two pillars not shown in this panorama, but yet the view can almost be considered seamless except that the railing shows where there should be a pillar(s). The GigaPan Stitcher comes though with flying colors on this one. The view, taken from the 24th floor and was breathtaking as I took it using my trusty Nikon D70 (soon to be retired) and a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens. There is no Photoshop on this panorama, only the GigaPan Stitcher, and the collection of photos were taken hand-held. |
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There is a parable in Matthew 25 that speaks of feeding the poor. I believe that these words from 2000 years ago, as well as words from other religions of the world, create a foundation of the rich giving food to the poor and of wealthy nations providing sustenance to the poor nations that are in need. I am impressed by what Palmer Memorial Episcopal Church is doing and have created this panorama to show others what some people in Houston are doing on the local level to give nourishment to those who are in need. Since this church is across the stree from Rice University, I have added it to the collection of Rice GigaPans, which can be accessed via this link: http://tinyurl.com/RiceUniversity For this hand-held panorama, I used a Nikon D70 with a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens and was stitched with the GigaPan Stitcher. The photos were taken over a period of two days. |
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An Update: The actual names of these two insects was provided to me by a very nice lady who works for the Museum of Natural Science and the correction has been applied. Actually, it is called the Cockrell Butterfly Center and Insect Zoo, but I have always heard it as the Butterfly Wing of the Museum. At any one time, it seems like there may be thousands of butterflies in this enclosure and in this particular panorama, we see a museum volunteer holding a Orange Giant Prickly Stick with Green Moving Leaf insect on his chest. Additional information concerning a Giant Prickly Stick can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extatosoma_tiaratuma and information for the Green Moving Leaf is here: http://tinyurl.com/nyccbx Note: The Orange Giant Prickly Stick is from Australia and the Moving Green Leaf is from Malaysia. A full description of the Houston Museum of Natural Science, including an external photo of the Butterfly Wing, can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houston_Museum_of_Natural_Science This panorama was taken hand-held with a Nikon D70 camera using a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens and attached to the camera was a SB800 flash unit. |