Location: Mendocino, California (population: about 1000), 150 miles north of San Francisco
Weather: Sunny but chilly: low 50s (F) with strong northwesterly winds (20-35 mph)
Equipment: Kodak DC-40 digital camera, Kaidan QuickPan QP-1A pan head, Adobe Photoshop 4.0, Apple QuickTime VR Authoring Studio 1.0
Dimensions: 320 by 240 pixels
Photographer: Jim Heid (jim@heidsite.com)
Company: Jim Heid Productions
Mendocino is a Victorian village founded in the mid-1800s by New Englanders. Formerly a logging and lumber town, it's now a haven for artists, tourists, sport divers, and nature lovers. (Don't be fooled by all the empty parking spaces: in the summer, this little town is a tourist madhouse.)
I shot this panoramic from the second-floor deck of the Mendocino Artists Cooperative Gallery. When the panoramic opens, you're looking north on Mendocino's Main Street (that's Tom, the gallery proprietor, standing on the deck). If you turn to the right, you can see Mendocino Bay, where Big River empties into the Pacific. A century ago, this bay was filled with steamers and sailing ships, picking up the finished lumber products that built San Francisco. (Most of the old-growth redwoods are gone now, sadly, and even some that remain are threatened by logging.)
As you look due south, you can see a lot of sun glare off the bay. I fretted about this and originally planned to shoot a different scene. But this scene is so representative of Mendocino that I decided to let the glare fall where it may. I'm glad I did -- the glare and lens flare very accurately convey the sunny brilliance of the day. And I like the silhouetted hikers on the headlands.
My thanks and admiration go to Robert "Rabbett" Abbett for spearheading this effort, which beautifully illustrates the Internet's ability to break down geographical barriers and bring people together into a global community -- two themes that are very important to me.
Jim Heid
Producer
"No Back Roads: The Internet Meets Rural America"
A Web documentary about the Internet's impact on rural America
