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Saint Sophia Cathedral Cupola Mosaic
The Transformation from Traditional Artwork to Virtual Reality
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Note the dome structure on the far left. |
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The architecture is modeled after the Byzantine style.
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Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Los Angeles, California
(Courtesy of Saint Sophia Cathedral Archive)
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My capturing of the images used in this presentation, The Saint Sophia Cathedral Cupola Mosaic, began in 1989 upon the mosaic’s completion by Italian artist and iconographer Sirio Tonelli in the historic Los Angeles structure, when I was commissioned to photograph this major artwork. The conception of a virtual reality panorama could not have been anticipated at that point, since it was about six years before the advent of QuickTime VR Authoring Suite, Apple Computer’s ground-breaking software program for mapping digital images to a cylinder for interactive 3-D viewing on a computer screen. The goal at that time simply was to document the mosaics with high quality large-format photographs.
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Saint Sophia Cathedral Sanctuary
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The dome before the installation of the mosaic
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The view downward, from near the top of the scaffold,
just under the platform
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Setting up power supplies (very cautiously) beneath the platform, to power the flash heads for the fisheye view of the entire dome
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The mosaic was only accessible at the top of a 100-foot (30-meter) scaffold, so the physical task of photographing the artwork involved hoisting up all of the camera and lighting equipment to a narrow catwalk with a rope and pulley, then lifting it through a man-sized hole onto the platform. My assistant and I climbed the steps gingerly, several times a day for more than a week, during one of the worst heat waves in Los Angeles’ history. The stifling atmosphere trapped in the dome of the cathedral was nearly unbearable, especially when compounded by heat from the modeling lights. Only a small fan could be used, because any vibration of the platform would have degraded image sharpness. The scaffold was very shaky to begin with, even with wedges inserted around the periphery of the platform to stabilize it. As I carried out my duties in this virtual oven, I had to admire the artist and his assistants for their talent, and to empathize with them for their endurance while installing the mosaic, a scenario vaguely reminiscent of Michelangelo's ordeal in painting the Sistine Chapel as depicted in The Agony and The Ecstasy.
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Photographing the lifesize mosaic figures
with a 4x5" view camera
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The 180° fisheye view of the entire cupola with
mosaic figures and stained glass windows
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The sequence in which to photograph the mosaic figures had to be timed according to the position of the sun, so as to provide rear-illumination of the stained glass windows. Exposure durations also had to be varied to accomplish this, and I had to hold my breath during the long exposures to keep from shaking the platform. The lights had to be placed and directed, so as to provide sufficient coverage, evenness of illumination, definition of the tiles’ relief, and highlighting of the gold-leafed tiles.
Nearly a decade later, I conceived the idea that this series of images would make an ideal subject for a VR panorama, even though I had not captured the mosaic images using the requisite alignment of the camera lens’ nodal point at the center of rotation (this was sure to present problems in the VR panorama authoring). It took me more than a week to do the retouching of the high-resolution images to match their densities and color, and to tweak the parameters in QuickTime™VR Authoring Studio; but I feel the entire effort was worthwhile, because now the beautiful mosaic can be seen by computer users everywhere in the world. Especially, the Saint Sophia parishioners will be able to see the glorious color and detail of the mosaic from an ideal vantage point, where previously they would have needed binoculars—one might say, questionable etiquette in a church!
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SPECIAL THANKS TO:
- Mr. Sid Brower, for commissioning me for the initial assignment, and for later digging up the original color transparencies from the church archives; and to the Saint Sophia Cathedral administration for their accommodation.
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- Tom’s Chroma Lab in Los Angeles,
for their special late-night sessions of E-6 film processing.
- Imagers in Atlanta and Quaker Photo in Philadelphia for their quality Kodak Professional Photo CD digital scanning.
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WEB NOTE:
The reason for the very large file size of the two large virtual panoramas, pertains to the imperative of preserving sufficient detail so that the individual mosaic tiles will be discernible when zooming in.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION:
The mosaic photographs were taken with a Sinar 4x5" view camera and 240mm Schneider Symmar lens, using five 2400 WS Norman electronic flash heads. Polarizing filters were used both over the camera lens and over the flash heads. The circular image of the dome interior was taken with a Nikon 35mm camera and 8mm Nikkor 180° circular fisheye lens pointed straight upward, using eight Norman flash heads with 22" reflectors spaced evenly around the periphery of the platform. Long before the mosaic was created, I had photographed the overall interior of the sanctuary, using a time exposure and "painting with light" lighting technique, using a portable Sun Gun and battery belt to fill in shadows, and I used Kodak Vericolor Type L color negative film (ISO 100). All of the photos of the cupola mosaics were taken on Kodak Ektachrome EPR color transparency film (ISO 64). The film images were digitized with Isomet drum scans and Kodak Pro Photo CD scans from the transparencies, and with a flatbed scan (PixelCraft) from the Kodak Ektacolor print of the sanctuary interior. Image processing and Web graphics were done in Adobe Photoshop & ImageReady. The 24 mosaic images were stitched together in Apple QuickTime VR Authoring Studio to create a Pict image of 1,476 x 18,336 pixels, which I extensively retouched in Adobe Photoshop; the VR panorama was authored in Sumware PanoMagic with Apple MPW Shell. Warping of still photos was done in Adobe Photoshop with Andromeda 3D Plug-in. Adobe GoLive was used for the Web page authoring. Additional QuickTime aurthoring was done in Apple QuickTime Pro, and of course, it all happens in QuickTime. Apple PowerMac and Powerbook systems were used throughout.
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Return to Saint Sophia Cathedral
MAIN PAGE
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Go to see the FULL SIZE VIRTUAL PANORAMA
with narration sound track (740 x 600, 6.9 MB) |
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Go to see the SMALLER VERSION of the Pano
with narration sound track (548 x 400, 4.6 MB) |
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Go to see the SMALLEST VERSION of the Pano
recommended for modem connections (1.1 MB) |
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Go to see the CUBIC VR PANORAMA (hemispheric)
showing the entire cupola (2 MB) |
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Go to see the FULL SCREEN CUBIC VR PANORAMA (hemispheric) showing the entire cupola (2 MB) |
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© 2000 - 2008 John Gaylord, vrimagers.com. All rights reserved.
QuickTime and QuickTime VR Authoring Studio are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.
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