here is an old photo that i took that i thought was basically junk until i learned how to make these little worlds. any really flat, plain, straight shot would work. you just need a level horizon, that has similar colors on both sides so they will be easy to blend together when they are wrapped around… check out some directions on youtube or whatever its really easy – the most important thing is selecting the right photos to use.
f8 8.0 ISO100
you can see my shadow on the lower right..
f8 1/500 ISO100 18mm
i’m thinking of doing a series of photos celebrating negative space. the clouds are starting to show their form around here finally. we still have several cloudless days a week. its a major drought happening here in california right now. we need some good snow bad, fast. i want to take a photo of the lifeguard stand at folsom lake, because its looking out onto an empty lake 
i wish the damn powerlines weren’t in this. perhaps in preparation for print i’ll clone that out.
f3.5 1/750s ISO100 18mm
i balanced the camera on the water fountain and used a 10 second timer. then i pretended to drink water, well i actually drank some. i took three shots like this, in the other two you can see more of my face, except that the framing of the fountain was much poorer because i was trying to elevate the camera by wedging a stick underneath it to get the right angle. this one is all gun sight. and you don’t need to get to much face to get the point. also my main subject of interest was supposed to be the water (frozen in time yet still liquid in reality) but its easy to get carried away.
f5.6 1/180s ISO400 200mm
shot on a tripod i believe. some intense sunset action, and the hustle and bustle of rush hour on capitol mall. i was originally going for some motion shots of the cars, but in the end i prefer this.
f5.6 1/4000 ISO400 28mm - lighting effects filter added in photoshop because i felt like it – minimal color processing.
okay okay, so you’ve already seen a picture of these birds and this bridge. well i was hanging out down by the river again waiting for the sunset and was fortunate enough to get some super golden light going on for about 15 minutes. this is by far the best photo i’ve ever taken of the tower bridge. because of the lighting, and also the composition, and also the birds. most of the other photos i’ve snapped of this bridge it has either been too dark, or too light for there to be any drama. also, there might not be any birds. so now maybe i’ve beaten this dead horse for the last time…. doubt it.
f16 1second ISO400 28mm
maybe its a little bit crooked still? i did an extreme job on the sky, because why not have a little bit of green in your life? you should have been up there on top of the parking garage with me. there were like 20,000 birds flying around everywhere. because this is such a long exposure you can’t see so many…but, if you look at this photo close up at full resolution, you can see birds in every tree and on top of all of the buildings… i cropped out a lot of that though.. its freaky. they all fly to downtown at sunset and find their little places to roost.
f5.6 1/45s ISO200 Flash (auto ttl hotshoe mounted bouncing off ceiling)
in photoshop i turned the non subject aspects of the image black. something i saw someone else doing yesterday when i was looking around at pictures. this dood was doing his work on flowers. so yes i’m guilty if you think that i’m copying your style.
f1.8 1/10s ISO200 50mm Canon FD handheld at a concert, before my friends band went on.
i was there to shot the bad. but this is one of my favorites from the lot today. slightly out of focus, but thats okay for me this time.
