Black Rock City 2007 Panoramic Video Loops

In the past several years, I had gotten into shooting panoramic images with my 35mm film camera and then with my digital camera. But rather than use stitching software to make the resulting images seamless, I enjoy the aesthetic of the imperfectly matched edges.

In 2007 I decided to do some experiments with my little digital camera. (My cheap digital still camera has the ability to record silent video in a proprietary 640x480, 15 fps format. I like the grainy video and slower framerate.) I shot ten second video clips in a panoramic manner, intending to try to come back and composite them together into some very large, high-resolution images.

I knew in advance that I would not be using a tripod and would allow for pleasing imperfections. Also, I didn't time the shots exactly... I just tried to count off ten seconds silently, resulting in loops of slightly different lengths.

Another thing I like is my camera's brightness/contrast adjustment that it makes whenever it begins recording -- it takes about a second for it to adjust from a dark image to a balanced image. In a composite with dozens of images at slightly different lengths, it sometimes ends up having a very cool effect.

Some of the resulting composited images are well over 5000 pixels wide, (though they tend not to be more than three "screens" or about 1900 pixels tall). There's no way I know of to project video images this large (yet!). I do have renders at 1280x1024 which I could make available for download later on if I have time. For this itty-bitty youtube presentation, I did a bit of "pan and scan" to be able to show a little more detail of each scene.

BRC 2007 Panoramic Video Loops Guide:

1. Art tour departing near Center Camp, with a close-up of Fata Morgana by Orion Fredericks.

2. Big Rig Jig by Mike Ross.

3. Steampunk Treehouse by Sean Orlando. On the horizon is the Critical Tits procession.

4. Center Camp in the afternoon, in a lull during a long and amazing whiteout! You can see how windy it is, and it's still quite dusty as visibility doesn't extend far beyond Center Camp.

5. Homouroboros by Peter Hudson, at rest during the day, with intermittent dusty swells visible in the distance.

6. The 2nd Man, sans head, probably on Thursday afternoon. In the foreground, Kinetic Wind Sculptures by David Boyer.

7. Tasseograph: The Trash TeaHouse Temple by Shrine and TukTuk. In the distance, the Temple of Forgiveness.

8. Temple of Forgiveness by by David Best and Tim Dawson.

9. Crude Awakening by Dan Das Mann, Karen Cusolito, Black Rock FX, Pyrokinetics, Nate Smith, Mark Perez and MonkeyBoy. On Sunday after the big event -- the pile of wooden rubble is all that remains of the 90' oil derrick.

10. The double rainbow from Center Camp.

11. The center of Center Camp in the middle of the night.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Black
• Rock
• City
• 2007
• Panoramic
• Video
• Loops
• Burning
• Man
• Giles
• O'Dell

[FelixLGato]

I love the song! Who is it?

[Zoyous]

Thank you! That is my own music project, Timezone LaFontaine.

[122172639]

This is amazing--just beautifully sensual, and I had already decided to fave it when (in the fourth, center camp part doing fire poi and some other twirling--) I saw... WOW, three of my local friends, which is just squeeable! I will be sharing with them--they will feel awesomized. This is really fantastic art. You could have something like this looping, projected/reeled somehow, powered by people or elements. It's just inspiring altogether. Thank you... this is perfect. Now youtube has HD!

[Zoyous]

That's so cool that your friends are in that shot. It was sort of in a lull in one of the long dust storms. I was considering re-shooting it because the color of the light kept changing in such interesting ways. I'm glad I got the right one! Thanks for the suggestions on projecting it, I'll think about that.

[lstormfeather]

2007 was a very good year...amazing! Did you ever share this via download?

[baysacrazy]

amazing eye. fantastically creative mind you have.  thank you for sharing it.

[JeanieR]

Thanks Zoyous, this is great. Can't wait to see this year's!

[maehb]

very wabi sabi, I love this.

[bohemianrhapsodi]

Bravo! I loved how the art installations (and the rainbow)appear to be dancing!

[karinedch]

Thans, Gile-