I imagine that this all started for me back at age five or so. Pregnant with her sixth and last child, my mother, feeling a bit Hubbard-ish, moved the family to a much larger house. With it came a much larger kitchen and, by necessity, a much larger kitchen table - around which various siblings would sit for breakfasts, occasional lunches, multiple snacks and only the rare missed dinner. One of my mother’s first forays into interior decoration came with having a world map (approximately six feet in length) laminated to the wall above the afore-mentioned table.
Her probable aspiration was to inoculate her children with wanderlust - which it did in spades as attested to by the sib emails I receive from all over the globe. It had a slightly different affect on me, child #4.
Rockport, Maine, 2019
I believe the technical term is a Mercator projection map. Starting on your far left with the nub of Russia’s Cape Dezhnev, giving way to Alaska and Canada, spanning eastward past an overly enlarged Greenland, then Iceland, the Scandinavians, mother Russia (the USSR in my day with city stars for Leningrad and Stalingrad) and, once again, ending up with that same Siberian nub.
Oak Grove, Descanso Gardens, La Cañada Flintridge, California, 2004
At five years old, imagine my confusion at seeing the same place…in two places. I would sit dutifully gazing at that map munching my Grape Nuts till 1971 when all six of the sibs were off to or past college and my parents re-sized to a house about the same square footage as the previous one. Twenty years past that, I began a series of 360 degree photographs. Not surprisingly enough, I discovered that my photographs were invariably bookended with visual echoes that started and stopped each image.
My new copyright started appearing in the lower right corner.
With her own self-generated “village,” my mother took it upon herself to expose her children to a wide swath of American culture. There were trips to Washington, D.C. (children #1 and #2 went in the first brigade - my sister, Patricia, #3 and I, #4, were in the next grouping), a parade of New York museums, Tanglewood, Sturbridge Village, etc. I distinctly remember going with my sister and mother to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows. We saw Michelangelo’s "Pietà." Later, I was indelibly (apparently) impressed by Kodak’s film,“The Searching Eye,” which used multiple 70mm projectors in a circular theater. Even later, when reading Susan Sontag's "On Photography" in college, I would learn (with one of those quintessential “duh” moments) that the camera only captures about 5% of what is visible, leaving 95% behind. The Circarama film and Mercator map start to make much more sense....
Venice, California, 2000
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T.S. Elliot
Mt. Norwottock, Amherst, Massachusetts - 1985
This is how I go about trying to capture that missing 95%:
Namalu Bay, Maui, Hawaii, 2009
It would usually take 13 shots (horizontal) to complete a full circle using my Toyo 8x10 with 300mm lens (15 or 16 if shot vertically). Gear included my trusty/beloved Reis tripod, changing bag, 8x10 film holders, various film stock, filters, a Gossen Ultra spot meter, 4x5 Polaroid back, one loop and a focusing cloth. No flash drives, no batteries. Well, maybe one 9 volt back-up for the Gossen.
I got a lot of, "Wha'cha surveyin' there, sonny?"
Mt. Holyoke Range - 1995
Mt. Holyoke Range - 1995
I have resurrected an old series from the early 90's where I use photoshop to "scrub" all traces of humanity from my images. Depending on your outlook, it can send the scene back 10,000 years or forward.
Mount Holyoke time lapse - 2019
Mount Holyoke Range - update - 2019
After 9/11, it became all but impossible to get my large format gear (and certainly unprocessed film) through LAX with enough time left over to actually get on a plane. Luckily, Nikon released the D1X around this time (which I still own!) and I began my slow-motion journey from D1 to D5 - all with considerably less baggage. Along the way, I have veered off to shoot with a classic old 501 Hasselblad rigged with a digital back. I usually end up with anywhere from 15 images to my present norm of about 75. I now shoot three rows of 25 to 30 images per row. The actual tripping of the shutter takes about 15 minutes to complete (any slower and the clouds outrun me). The photoshopping, on the other hand, can take up to six months (see time lapse below). I should state here that I started my artistic career as a photo-realist painter and could/would spend upwards of a year on a single painting (see folder labeled "PAINTING"). I have found as I get older that my photographs have started to contain fewer and fewer blue skies - blue skies are the absolute worst when it comes to seaming!
Sun, Moon, Malibu - in progress
Sun, Moon, Malibu - Malibu, California, - 2010
One of my colleagues where I used to teach in Los Angeles has told me about his experiments with the newfangled Gigapan contraption. Time saving to say the least. I do not, however, have a hard drive the size of Texas and, as noted, I am still a recovering photo-realist painter…now, get off my lawn.
Winter on Mount Battie, Camden, Maine 2019
Mount Battie Time Lapse
Winter Solstice - County Line, Malibu, California 2005
Fog Rocks, Lincolnville, Maine - 2001
At some point before I totally burn-out and Adobe completely destroys my eyesight, I hope to make a conical 360 - what I will call a “true 360.” One where the viewer has to duck under a dome, step inside and be surrounded from ground to sky with a virtual landscape. At which point, someone in the gallery will mumble, “Why not just go outside?” And that will be that.
All material on this Website, including design, text, images and logos are owned by KEVIN O’MALLEY through copyright via the Library of Congress and/or The Writer’s Guild. All rights are reserved by KEVIN O’MALLEY. Content may not be copied, reproduced, transmitted, distributed, downloaded or transferred in any form or by any means without KEVIN O’MALLEY's prior written consent and with express attribution to him.
Copyright infringement is a violation of federal law subject to criminal and civil penalties. For permission to reprint/reproduce, please email KEVIN O’MALLEY via the "CONTACT" portal.
Thank you.