For more on Evans, see 'BURNING MAN FESTIVAL, ONE MAN'S EXPERIENCE'

VR photographer Charles Evans(of digitalpanos.com) is a consultant and demo artist for REALVIZ, a French 3D and special effects software company well known for its Stitcher software. He has also completed several international photo assignments and is currently busy writing a Stitcher handbook. The Seattle, Washington based photographer began experimenting with panoramic photography in 1998, while studying biology. Since then he has produced a large portfolio of panoramas, including images of people and artwork from the Burning Man Festival.

Evans has come a long way in the past five years, when he first became involved with VR photography after being introduced to QuickTime while working on the IS/IT help desk at Apple. The only photography class he's ever taken was back in high school, but it left an impression, particularly towards his stance on equipment. "The teacher began the class by showing us a series of beautiful black and white pictures" Charles relays. "Then he showed us the camera he used. It was a pinhole camera made from a shoebox! Then he said, 'I don't ever want to hear anyone in this class complain that they need an expensive camera to take a good picture.' Certainly there is a limit to what you can do with a shoebox. But the point is well taken."

A self-taught photographer, his training came from roaming the foothills of Sonoma County, California, shooting nature. He claims it was a great way to learn, as one must carry all the requisite gear. It quickly instilled in him a pared-down philosophy. "You must carry all your gear, which teaches you to get the most out of the fewest pieces of equipment. You must learn to use your equipment in various and adverse situations; rain, snow, wind, dust, etc. And you must learn to setup in creeks, on boulders, mud, steep slopes, etc. You must learn to observe, work with, and adapt to the environment. You cannot just make the environment you want as in studio photography. And doing nature photography teaches a fundamental principle: Under any lighting conditions there is something that looks good. And any thing will look good under some lighting condition."

Charles has a well-articulated philosophy: every location "feels more strongly like itself" from certain spots, or perspectives, and that is an entirely subjective internal experience. "The observer creates the experience, not the place," he says. "But whatever mood or feeling you have about a place, the feeling will get stronger or weaker depending on where you stand." He uses an example of photographing an oak tree. "You will find, without having to do any deliberate compositional thinking, that there are some spots where it is more pleasant to sit and observe. I have done this experiment and came up with this oak tree panorama. In this case I found that the most 'treelike' spot for me was actually up in the tree. So when I am out shooting panoramas the problem in my mind is 'How can I find the spot from which I get the strongest feeling about this place?'."

Still a relatively new photographer, Charles' interests are moving away from landscapes and towards people and non-literal photography, a thought process started when he read 'What is Art?' by John Canaday. "In reading about the impressionists I had the experience of hearing my own thoughts and sentiments put into words. I never felt wholly satisfied with my own attempts to create realistic photos but didn't understand why," he says. He plans to explore the realm of impressionistic panoramic portraiture (see his Halloween Fairy Picture). "Portrait photography has a challenging yet satisfying social dimension that is lacking in nature and architectural photography."

We recently caught up with this young and evolving artist for a Q & A session:

You've been involved with REALVIZ for some time now. How did you get involved with the creation and updates of Stitcher?

My introduction to REALViZ resulted from a fairly random sequence of events characteristic of all things in the Tech world. I happened to be in San Francisco with another VR photographer, Greg Downing (see gregdowning.com). REALViZ had just opened their SF office so we stopped by. Next thing I know Greg and I were writing a user's guide for Image Modeler! Talk about jobs never making it to the want ads. Since then I've been doing contract work on and off with REALViZ, including demo work and providing suggestions for Stitcher. The most interesting job I had with REALViZ was shooting a series of international panoramas for a project they did for Intel Corporation.

REALVIZ commissioned one of your photos for the cover of its software box. Can you give us some background on shooting and postproduction of this very special cubic VR?

I shot that Caesar's Palace panorama while working at the NAB conference in Las Vegas. I was walking around playing tourist with Nicholas Bonamy, a programmer for REALViZ. There aren't necessarily a lot of good panos in Las Vegas. The statue in front of Caesars palace seemed like one of the more interesting spots. The panorama was taken with a digital point-and-shoot camera (Nikon Coolpix 950) and stitched in Stitcher. Because it was a static scene, it was pretty easy to put together. The postproduction consisted of basic Photoshop adjustments: levels, saturation, color balance, etc. Honestly, I think the location made a good picture not because of my photographic skills, but because the location is basically a prop, like at Disneyland. It is designed and lit to look good. So basically there was no magic behind the picture, apart from the large full moon, which I added later. I don't think you can see the moon in Las Vegas, can you?

You've traveled extensively for REALVIZ - Brazil, Peru, Chile, Thailand, etc. - lucky guy! Any problems or anecdotes you'd like to relate?

While shooting a mundane pano in a city park in Sao Palo, I found myself surrounded by six Brazilian police officers. When you're shooting a pano there's nothing more annoying than having someone walk right up and stand in the middle of the picture. In this case I had six people standing in my picture. For a moment I considered that a circle of police might make a more interesting pano than the one I was shooting. But the police seemed to lack a sense of humor. I know some Spanish, and you might think Spanish and Portuguese are similar, but they're not. Putting the camera away didn't seem to help. They were unhappy and getting unhappier. They stopped a jogger who translated. He said the police wanted me to go to the station. Having taken a pano in Tiananmen Square, I could not imagine how shooting a picture in a public park would be a problem. Down at the station I sat on a bench while the police discussed my situation. Apparently they decided to consult their supervisor, so we marched over to the supervisor's office, which had an 'Out To Lunch' sign on it. Eventually they contacted someone on the radio, the supervisor I assume, after which they smiled and escorted me right back to where I had been shooting the pano in the first place. They stood there indicating that it was OK to take pictures. Well, by this time I didn't want the damn picture! But they just stood there waiting so I setup and pretended to shoot some pictures. Thus satisfied, they went away. I never did figure out what the problem was. But it taught me a valuable lesson: Assignment photography is 10% photography and 90% everything else.

You often mention the pared-down essentials you use when photographing, particularly in hard-to-reach areas. What are your essential photography tools?

It's true. From a hardware point of view, I'm a minimalist. Mainly that's just an economic issue. I mean if a philanthropist gave me a Panoscan then that's what I'd use almost exclusively. But a person has to use what's available to them. And the primary advantage of stitching panoramas is that it takes a minimum of specialized equipment. My equipment list includes the basic stuff: digital camera, pan head, tripod, lens cloth. This short equipment list is also due to the fact that I enjoy nature photography. And when you have to carry everything on your back it's a good motivation to "think simple."

Scott Highton summarized his attitude towards equipment in a recent iqtvra post as follows: Years 1-5, Build everything (because you can't afford to buy it). Years 6-10, Buy everything. Years 11-15, Build everything (because you now have to modify most of what you buy and you're more particular about what it should do). What do you think of this statement?

That pretty much describes me! My first pan head was made with a piece of aluminum that I bent into shape using a pair of vice-grips. The next thing I bought was one of the original Kaidan pan heads. And I'm happy to say that old pan head still works! Now I use a Kaidan spherical arm attached to a Bogen click-stop mechanism mounted directly to the tripod. I gave up using a ball head or other leveling device because it was too heavy to carry. I've also invented a couple other gadgets like tripod snow-feet and a custom-molded mounting plate for my camera so I don't have to fumble around with adjustments.

What can we expect from your new handbook, 'Creating panoramas with REALVIZ Stitcher'?

Well, basically the book is a collection of all the things I do to create the images on my web site. I don't really have any "secret" information. It's more about providing people with a single resource where they can learn about stitching panoramas. There is already a lot of information on the web but it tends to be scattered all over the place, which is very frustrating and confusing for a beginner. Although the book is about Stitcher, roughly 75% of the book addresses all the "other stuff" that goes into a good pano: composition, exposure, parallax, distortion, Photoshop, etc. On the one hand it's easy to write about something you know. But it also takes a lot of stamina. Not only am I the chief writer, editor, illustrator, content producer, and layout designer, but it's not easy to explain something in a thorough, lucid, and accurate manner.

To see more of Charles Evans' work, visit www.digitalpanos.com

Email: charles@digitalpanos.com