Program Topic: Getting Started in VR Photography and the Panoramic Narrative

This is an overview of how to get started shooting 360 degree VR (Virtual Reality) images and how it has lead this photographer to embrace a higher level of visual literacy that seeks an intimacy with his subjects while in full context with its whole environment. Jook photographs his panoramic urban landscapes with a panoramic narrative that senses moments of clarity in the flow of life and shares that intimacy with his audience through interactive media viewers that puts his audience right back in the midst of the moment.

Bio/Artist Statement:

Jook LeungJook Leung, jook@me.com or jook@360vr.com

Jook Leung Photography

http://360vr.com

282 Brookside Avenue, Cresskill, New Jersey 07626-1132 United States

cell: 201 679 6177

As a visual artist, photography has been my life long journey, professionally and personally it continues to be most comforting to my being and is what I do best. 

I am constantly challenging myself with new visual encounters that are compelling moments in time where everything around me has a role in my photograph. Nothing is to be left out. These are my 360 degree spherical panoramas. This visual format was first made possible with digital imaging and pioneering technologies like Quicktime VR and Panorama Tools. I have come to embrace this multimedia format as the ultimate immersive visual medium for the photographer-visual artist.

The choice of camera lenses for this continuous perspective is ultra-wide, usually several fisheye images are stitched together to create this spherical 360 degree view. My best panoramic images seek an intimacy with my subjects in full context with their whole environment. The interactive viewing experience puts the viewer right back into the middle of it. This new and exciting photographic environment demands a visual awareness that is wonderful to explore when done exceptionally well.

Creating an exciting 360 degree spherical panorama in a photo-journalistic context is a high challenge. A good photographer’s instinct will recognize or create the right conditions to bring subject, composition and story together. It’s the extra challenge, the other 240 degrees that most other image-makers choose to ignore in their perceptual field of vision.

 My panoramic landscapes are usually urban landscapes with a 360 degree field of view. These can be complex visual narratives that takes a slice out of the constant flow of life and shares that intimacy with the viewer. I am always looking to find my next 360 degree  panorama and be ready to see it before it happens. The ultimate visual narrative for a photographer I feel, is to capture a moment when everything around him reaches a crescendo, to have a picture with a thousand stories.

I have been internationally recognized as an innovator in spherical panoramic photography. In a rare achievement, I was presented with my third consecutive Fujifilm Masterpiece Award for photographic excellence in electronic imaging for my 360 degree panoramas by IAPP – International Association of Panoramic Photographers. My experience spans 34 years as a photographer with a background in photo-illustration and digital imaging. I has been been specializing in 360 degree panoramas for the last 14 years. 

I have given presentations and workshops about my work. Most recently at the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA) Tucson 2010 conference. Past participation in IVRPA conferences include Berkley, California and Cologne, Germany.  I’ve also participated in the the VR Summits in Sedona, Arizona, Washington, DC, and Savannah, Georgia and with the International Association of Panoramic Photographers (IAPP) conventions in Boulder, Colorado, Monterey, California and Austin, Texas. I am on the faculty at Maine Media Workshops as an instructor in 360 Degrees Panoramic Photography. I have given presentations about my panoramic photography to news media and governmental agencies. I have also written articles for Panorama Magazine. In January 2005 my panoramas were featured in an on-air interview on ABC’s News Now program about my 360VR panoramas of Times Square, NYC on New Year’s Eve.