Last month, I traveled to Vermont to photograph the Middle Covered Bridge in Woodstock. The Middle Covered Bridge is right in the heart of Woodstock’s downtown historic district, and my plan is to capture the bridge, along with a quaint New England-style clapboard house in a super-long panorama.
As you can imagine, I’m having fun with this Buena Vista Panorama kick, in which I try to take ultra-wide film photos that have a breathtaking wide scope. In case you’re a new reader to my blog, the Buena Vista Panorama series is based on an anecdote my Grandma Betty told me about how, when she visited Europe and spent some time in Italy, the tour guide didn’t speak English, and she spoke no Italian. However … every time the tour stopped at some important locale or historic destination, the tour guide would bellow out, “Buena Vista Panorama!” and Grandma Betty thought that was the greatest communication point.
I’m using my Rolleiflex Automat MX camera with a special panoramic head attachment. The panorama will allow me to stitch together several 12×12 square frames into one super-wide artwork. Ostensibly, I should be able to build up a 12×72 six-frame creation … but for now, I’m happy with pulling at least one 12×48 four-frame creation and a 12×60 five-frame stitch job.
These right now are my two “king of the mountain” images, and before I’m done, one of these two – or maybe a photo I haven’t taken yet – will be an entrant into Competition Season 2024. At the moment, I’m kind digging the Boreas Ponds one as the frontrunner, but let’s see what the photos from Woodstock will provide.
I shot with a roll of Fuji Velvia 100 film, as I positioned my tripod on the corner of Green and Mountain Streets. Snap – rotate – snap – rotate – keep going until you reach the other side of the street.
And after the film came back last night from the developers …
This is what I achieved.
Well now. This actually looks rather impressive. This is six images stitched together into one panorama. You can see the street curve right into the covered bridge. This is nice. This is okay. This is …
This is horribly tilted.
The street is not on a slope. The white house with the picket fence looks like its architect last worked on a bell tower in Pisa. And unfortunately, I must have had my camera slightly out of balance … because the street is seriously sloping downward. Ugh. This is just good enough, but not excellent. Not Competition Season worthy.
But I’m getting closer. I know I am.
Let’s keep this going. I still have a chance to put something together.
Let’s make it happen.
Chuck The Writer 
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