Sunday's endeavors took me to Long Beach, where the Queen Mary has been permanently berthed as a floating hotel and party venue.

But I was there to work. This equinox's World Wide Panorama shoot has "Bridges" as its theme, and the organizers encourage participants to take a less-than-literal approach if so desired. Although Southern California has no lack of bridges, most have nothing photogenic about them. Shooting mundane isn't bad, but I'd prefer to spend time with more interesting subjects.

Thus, the bridge of the Queen Mary serves not only as a literal bridge (although not the kind they will be expecting) but also a metaphorical one, because luxury liners like this served as virtual transoceanic bridges in the days prior to air travel. Not only that, but this particular ship also bridged war and peace, because she served as a troop transport in World War II.

In terms of shooting aboard, I was totally surprised not to have anyone ask me about / restrict me from shooting commercially! Nor did they check my backpack, which was full of large batteries and much electrical gear and cables. Trying to shoot panoramas amongst the normal crowd of visitors certainly tried my patience, and allowed me to make about one panorama per hour.

But the gorgeous weather made up for a lot of that. Actually, I have to factor in an hour or so for having to reshoot a few places after discovering that they had been shot at low resolution! At least I found the error before leaving the ship without the chance to go back.

Yes, it really is 2:30 am Wednesday morning, but I really wanted to get these panos done. If you'd like to take a look at them I'd love to hear your comments.

Queen Mary Panoramas