The other day I saw a link on a news site to an Apple page which was labeled "QuickTime is immersive", so I thought, great, Apple is continuing to promote QTVR, and clicked on it. Well imagine my surprise to see one of my panoramas being used. I'm flattered that Apple likes my work. I do wish they would credit me as the photographer, and I have rebuilt that scene so that it is higher quality now (and not in Cinepak either).
So, for anyone who saw that page and wondered where it was, who shot it, etc., here's the background.
I had driven up to the eastern Sierra Nevada one October weekend in 1997. The aspens were turning color and I wanted to capture some of their glory in a VR. I arrived late for some reason and so spent the rest of Saturday shooting Bodie. Sunday dawned clear and bright. I had breakfast at the Hayes Street cafe in Bridgeport and drove up a rough dirt road to Green Creek. I was looking forward to seeing the Green Creek backcounty area as I had heard about it but never been there before. The equipment I was using was a Bogen 7 pound tripod, Nikon N90s, and 20mm or 24mm lens. My pack weighed the usual (for that time) 25 pounds or so.
A very short distance from the trailhead I stopped and shot "Green Creek nr 1" in the middle of a patch of forest. Soon thereafter I saw a cluster of aspens across the stream that looked promising. I crossed the stream and climbed up the other side of the valley to get "Green Creek nr 2". On the way back my boot slipped into the cold stream and got wet inside and out. Not an auspicious beginning, but I decided to ignore it and forge onwards.
A few miles later I dropped off the trail to capture one of my favorite scenes, "Green Creek nr 3" amidst brilliant aspens and soothing Green Creek. The trail then got steeper and switched back and forth in an open rocky slope, as can be seen in "Green Creek nr 4". Some people passed me here and asked me what I was doing. Not too much later I arrived at Green Lake, a high Sierra gem. I left the trail to capture this scene on the east shore beach where a lot of drift logs had piled up. I had lunch while admiring the view and resting from the effort so far.
I decided I had enough energy to keep going, so I headed south on the trail towards Yosemite. The trail goes down, then up, up, and more up before reaching a side valley. Shortly thereafter I came to East Lake, which I ambled alongside for awhile before finding the viewpoint I wanted. I set up on the edge of the lake and shot the scene you see on Apple's webpage. I felt at the time that the location was pretty amazing and would make a good VR.
I kept on going, and the trail soon passed high over Gilman Lake. The nature of the mountains was changing, as you can see by the reddish rockslide on the other side of the lake. Not long after that I got to the Hoover Lakes. The mountains on the other side of the lake are in Yosemite. I made my way to the other side of Hoover Lake and shot my high water mark for the day in a muddy spot at the SW end of Hoover Lake.
I really wanted to make it to Summit Lake and the actual Yosemite border, but the shadows were getting long, and I didn't want to be negotiating the trail in the darkness. When I stumbled into the junction with the Green Creek Trail, I sat down on a rock and rested. I could have laid down and taken a nap. I don't think I'd been that tired in a long time. I shot two more places with colorful aspens, but they really didn't come out that well.
Finally I made it back to the trailhead and civilization. It had been one of the best hiking days of my life. And yes, those scenes have been rebuilt to use PhotoJPEG instead of the old Cinepak codec.
Addendum: Apple also has this page which does credit me.
7:00:00 AM 
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