Omnidirectional

360 photography is not just about making cool VR images, it's about centering the experience of the audience. And to some extent, getting the photographer out from behind the camera.

When you plan a 360 shot, you need to consider the space all around you, or better yet, all around the audience. And the audience, is an audience of one. A single individual in the middle of the scene, immersed. The photographer, cannot afford to think about what's just in front of them. 360 cameras force us to be aware of what is all around.

What I love most about omnidirectional photography is that it eliminates the linear objectivity of being situated behind the camera. And it demands a peripheral view, a broader awareness of one's surroundings. There is no camera body to hide behind. It's just you in the environment. Yet, I have a lot of fun, trying to find hiding places in the environment to capture a shot without me in it, while at the same time knowing, I am still there in the environment where the shot is being taken.

As a 360 photographer, you learn to see space as spherical, and you in the centre of your experience. Yet you make something for somebody else to be in the centre of their own experience.

In a world of square screens with linear "objective" narratives that pull you along somebody else's story, the 360 VR experience offers something else. It centers the experience of the audience, not the frontal view of the photographer. The omnidirectional experience is so much more expansive, as it allows you to look or move around and be immersed in a space. And even though the VR experience of the night's sky pales in comparison to being outside on a clear dark night, the ability to look around and choose for yourself what to look at is something lacking in traditional photography.

A few years ago, on a clear dark night, I made a 360 timelapse video at Onkiniemi in Tampere, Suomi, and I happened to get a brief wisp of the Northern Lights.

Immersive VR (Equirectangular Projection) https://tampere360vr.netlify.app/

Video format https://tampere360.netlify.app/

Timelapse taken 4th of November 2018 from 00:43 to 02:20 EEST