The illustrious blog your eyes now behold began with a bang whimper 7 years ago today. I started out on my own believing there’s got to be a better way to produce & display panoramic content… today we have a growing team of 7, producing world renowned projects. It has been a hell of a ride.
During the past years Michelle and I have put everything on the line repeatedly to build Panedia. We’ve sunk hundreds of thousands of dollars into developing the business, at one stage selling our first home to enable us to continue growing. I don’t regret giving up our home for a second*, as I LOVE what I do, I LOVE the business we’ve built, I LOVE the work we produce and the people I produce it with with. I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I wouldn’t change a thing. (Well… just a few things.)
Along the way we’ve produced more than 15,000 terrestrial panoramas, and over 55,000 underwater panoramas. We’ve worked alongside ‘Ma & Pa’ businesses, charities helping our communities like Mater and RSL, all the way up to the big leagues with the Catlin Seaview Survey, Tourism Queensland and Google among many others.
(Check the latest underwater count here at the Catlin Global Reef Record.)
Of course the blog wasn’t the start of the work and company that became Panedia, that story goes back another year to 2006, (or to 1999 when I started panoramic photography or to 1987 when I started photography) but it was the first time I posted regular content produced using the new systems I had begun developing. The early blog posts also lead to many contacts throughout the country and a couple of new clients, some of which I continue to work with today.
The blog grew in fits and starts… without a real focus on who the reader was. There were very long periods with no posts and the odd blog hacking… we had amazing SEO value for various drugs at one point. So over the past couple of weeks we’ve given the blog a fresh coat of paint, started updating the old posts and added in a great many new posts, covering some of what we’ve been up to. Moving forward we plan to post most of our public projects as they go live, and showcase some of our favourite work, be it personal or commercial. There may even be the odd technical production post, commentary or review showing up here.
The ‘7 Year Itch’ is psychological term which suggests that happiness in a relationship declines after year seven. I can say without hesitation my happiness in relationship to Panedia only continues to grow. With that I highly look forward to the next 7 years with my team of outstanding experts, the projects we have lined up for this year, and the plans we have for the future. Stay tuned… there is MUCH MORE TO COME.
Which brings me to our featured panorama above… shot in Indonesia in 2013, it is still one of my favourite panoramas. Sure I wish I shot it on a D800, rather than a 5DmkII… for the higher rez, greater dynamic range and lower noise… but even so, it’s brilliant. Christophe the SVII pilot you can see in the panorama was gracious enough to shoot a panorama of me, as I captured his image. It’s not quite as brilliant… apart from those brilliant white legs…shield your eyes 😉
In case you don’t head back to view the first post… here’s where it all started… on a hill in the middle of the outback… that’s a very long way from a coral reef on the tiny uninhabited island of Keruo, West Papua, Indonesia.