How I took it: Gym Panorama

Photographer: Al Jurina
When I initially received a request to photograph the unfinished gymnasium at the school where I work, I knew that there would be some challenges. For one, the only light available up there was from a single work light in the stage area.

Problem 1: Solving the light issue

At first, I was thinking that I could rig up 4 off-camera flashes at the four corners of the gymnasium and fire them wirelessly at high power at the white walls, thus flooding the room with light. However, the issues of dealing with not getting the flashes in the shot as well as avoiding the hot-spots that the flashes would place on the walls was a concern. The goal was to get as much of the gymnasium area as possible. After much deliberation, I decided on grabbing the tripod and seeing what could be done with a long exposure.

Problem 2: The focal length issue


My widest angle lens was a 30mm prime lens. For a space this large, this just was not going to cut it. I pondered the possibilities of obtaining a wider lens, but most wide-angle lenses that I had access to produced considerable lens distortion at the edges, which would not do here. Being that I already had a tripod in my plan for the lighting, I decided to try my hand at shooting a series of images and then stitching them together to make one large image.

The Details

I decided that the stage would have been the best vantage point to set up the tripod. The work light was there, and had I chosen the other end of the gym, it is likely that the work light would have overwhelmed the lighting and washed out most of the photo. After setting up the tripod and figuring out an exposure (F/11, ISO 200, 30 seconds) I made 6 vertical shots of the Gym, overlapping each image by 1/3rd (this helps your software stitch the images together easier). I then made some minor color corrections to the images, imported them into photoshop, and stitched them together. The software did an amazing job of eliminating any trace of seams between the images.

Overall, this project turned out very well for us (the image was used in a grant application, which won us 100,000 dollars to see it's completion!). It definitely peaked my interest in shooting more panoramic shots. Our gym is scheduled to be completed in August of this year. My goal is to take another panoramic shot at that time and will hopefully be able to chronicle that experience here as well. 

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