Round.me VR for Fun
You may not know, but I’ve been involved in photography for a long time - not quite as long as in computing, but it’s been a lifelong passion and a pillar of much of my career.
For over 15 years, my work in photos was dominated by two interests: available light candid photography, a deeply personal medium I rarely share, and an interest in the many forms of panoramas, from traditional wide format images to fully immersive 360 degree bubbles.
The past two years this passion has waned painfully. There are many reasons for this - a lack of inspiration, questioning of sentimentalism, shortness of time, lack of travel, and just plain not doing it.
A few weeks ago I realized that I hadn’t even experimented with Google Cardboard significantly… for those unaware, this is a dirt-cheap way of turning a modern smartphone into a surprisingly good virtual reality headset. Having shot thousands upon thousands of 360 degree photographs throughout the late 90s and 2000s, what was always missing was a viable display technology - a small box within a Web browser just did not do the work justice. Yet, here I was, sitting on a large archive of material just begging for tools that have now been around several years, and I’d missed it.
It’s only just starting to reignite my interest in immersive photography, but I’m thinking about it every day again, looking at the world around me again in ways only VR photographers recognize. If you have Cardboard - or any VR display - check out a few samples of old captures on my profile at Round.me. While these can be viewed in any Web browser, the best experience is to use Cardboard or similar (I love the ViewMaster VR Starter Kit) download their mobile app, available for both iOS and Android.