“Is that a fish frozen in the ice?!?”

Back around August or so, I had this idea of putting together a 360-degree panoramic photograph of the Lakehouse at Washington Park, from the perspective of someone in a boat in the middle of the lake.  Of course, I couldn’t pull that idea off – there’s no way to stabilize a boat to stay put against the waves unless it was anchored like an off-shore oil rig.

So I put the idea in the back of my mind and went on with other things.

Yesterday was a decent day out – a little cold, but not too chilly.  I thought to myself… what if I could go back out to Washington Park, go as far out on the lake as I dared until I heard the ice crack, get the panoramic photos and then get off the ice as fast as possible?

Well, one of two things would happen – I’d either have some decent photographs for a blog post, or this entry would be referenced in an obituary.

I drove over to Washington Park, parked the Pontiac 6000, and carried my Nikon D700, along with a couple of lenses, my cable release, and a tripod, down to the Lakehouse.  To my surprise, I saw what appeared to be a trio of ice skaters gliding along the frozen lake.  “Hey there,” I called out to one of the skaters.  “How thick is the ice?”

“At least a foot thick,” he shouted back.  “You could drive a car on it.”

“You sure it’s safe?”

“Sure it’s safe.  Don’t worry, if you fall in, I’ll rescue you.”

Sure enough, the lake was frozen solid.  I stepped gingerly onto the ice; it didn’t crackle or fracture.  I slowly walked toward the center of the lake, where it seemed the surface of the lake was like cold slippery concrete.

First things first.  I popped on my Kiev MIR-21H full-frame fisheye lens, and got as close as I could to the Washington Park Lakehouse, and fired away.  This was great.  I was able to get plenty of detail – considering the closest shot I was ever able to get of this side of the Lakehouse was from the rock outcropping on the lakebed.

“Hey there!” the skating man called out to me, from the direction of the bridge that spans Washington Park Lake.

“What’s up?” I shouted back.

“You gotta see this.  Bring your camera.”

Well, running on a frozen lake was never my strong suit, so I simply carried the tripod-mounted camera with me, walking down the middle of Washington Park Lake.

As I reached the skating man, he pointed down to the ice.  “Look at that.”

I looked.

“Is that a fish frozen in the ice?” I asked, realizing that it really was a fish that got caught where it shouldn’t have been.  I readjusted my camera and took some more shots.  By now, other people were walking onto the ice – some were curious about what we had found, others were more curious about how thick the lake ice really was.

Apparently little Billy Bass wasn’t going to be singing about getting some filet-o-fish at this point, but he could still draw a crowd.  Even a young couple with their dog came over to view the frozen fossil.  The dog, named Maddie, even brought a stick – apparently thinking it was time to play fetch.  In fact, during the day I witnessed several dog owners testing their dogs’ abilities to handle the ice by tossing a stick or a ball onto the frozen ice surface and expecting their dogs to go fetch.

I went back home and processed the morning photos.  They were decent, but the lighting was off (I wanted some sunshine, but there were nothing but clouds in the sky).  It would eventually take two more trips to Washington Park, where I witnessed everything from a family playing pond hockey to a couple of lovebirds smooching as they walked hand-in-hand on the frozen ice.  My second trip that day to Washington Park allowed me to assemble this photograph of Washington Park’s bridge, using seven different photographs into one wide-angle finish.

At about 4:00 p.m., the sun came out in full force.  I knew I had to go back to Washington Park and try to get the shot I dreamed of – a full 360-degree panorama shot.  Since I don’t own a dedicated panorama lens (and my Kenko 180-degree fisheye screw-on lens must have been built with dedicated chromatic aberrations), I snapped on my 55mm Kiev wide-angle f/2 manual lens.  Hey, this thing was built in Ukraine, it’s gotta be able to handle the cold weather, right?

I had to move fast.  Already the sun was starting to set behind the Madison Avenue rowhouses.  I planted and anchored the tripod.  Strapped on the cable shutter release.  Slapped a fresh battery into the D700.  In went a 4GB chip.  Camera set to take JPG’s and Nikon’s proprietary raw NEF format.

Off came the camera lens.

Snap. Snap.

Turn a few degrees to the right.

Snap. Snap.

Another few degrees to the right.

I made a full 360-degree revolution, taking at least two pictures at every interval.  Then I went home.  If I wasn’t going to get the panorama shot, after all this effort, I would never get it.

I went through several different online panorama stitching programs, and eventually settled on autostitch.net, a free program.  I put the 27 pictures into autostitch.net, and prayed for the best.

And this is what came out.

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Granted, the picture is small in the blog viewer, but click on the picture and you can see the full effect of 27 photographs in a 360-degree panorama, with the Lakehouse at sunset.

My first full-360-degree panorama.  Wow.  I can’t believe it.