This is easily one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen and it makes me jealous that I’m not a photographer (or more to the point, a really good photographer).
Here is a glance at a gigapan from the 2011 NCAA Final Four. It’s from the national championship game between Connecticut and Butler, played April 4, 2011 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, TX. It was shot by Sports Illustrated photographer David Bergman. It’s 450 photos taken across a 38-minute span of the entire arena. Basically, you can zoom out and see the wide shot or you can zoom in and see just about everybody that was in the building (including me).
I was fortunate enough to be in the building working. My back is to the camera, front row of press row, about four seats to the left of the CBS broadcast crew of Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg and Steve Kerr. And in front of my personal favorite writer, SI’s Joe Posnanski (who was in the seat directly behind me in the second row). Only in my home city can I have a better seat than perhaps the best sports columnist in the country. And I did make a point to turn around and introduce myself. Directly to my left is my main man, Houston Chronicle columnist Jerome Solomon whom I admire greatly and to the left of him is the St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Bryan Burwell, who is also a terrific writer.
Definitely click on the link above to explore the gigapan. As for my five seconds of gigapan fame, see below:
