In 1996 the big thing in the computer world was CD Rom drives. And a race to create content on CDs. Besides music, there was digital magazines, games and of course software. Other interesting new uses were encyclopedias and virtual touring. A friend of mine called me up one day and said he had a project I might be interested in working on with him. It was a virtual tour of The White House. Naturally I said yes. What a cool project I thought. I needed to learn the ins and outs of creating film that could be stitched together to form a 360° view, but that wasn’t all that difficult. Mostly I had to get new gear necessary to make the required shots. I spent about a total of six weeks at The White House over the spring and summer. It was during the Clinton administration and a fascinating time to be there. I not only photographed every room in the place but was behind the scenes at special events and state dinners. It was an incredible experience all in all. But the final product, a CD titled “The White “ never really gained any interest and quietly died on the vine. A curious by product of the project waere the 2-dimensional panoramas. It fit with my interest with wide view, and I hoped to make prints and if I could drum up any interest for a possible show or book. But the film had been badly damaged by the lab that did the processing and scanning of the original film. I thought I could make my own scans and restore them. But the process was too labor intensive and with lack of interest, I decided to shelve the project. In 2015, my friend called me up to see if I would make one pan for him to use in a project he was working on. Sure, why not? He gave me the original CDs containing the first scans. It seems that in the time that had passed, technology and my Photoshop skills had vastly improved, and I was able to quickly create a pan for his use. Though the scans were a bit rough and not the quality I could do with my scanner, I became intrigued by what I might be able to do with the original scans. After all they were done. It would shorten my workflow from hours to minutes. But the images were still in need of a lot of retouching. Lots of dust and scratches. Lots of tedious PS work. Strangely enough around that time I was watching a Ken Burns film. noticed how her treated the old vintage photographs. He left them alone; he didn’t clean them up at all. So, I thought that’s what I should do. After all my film was vintage too. I even decided to add more distress and give the images an additional patina of age. I took the work and created three print portfolios. I shopped the work around to publishers to see if there was interest in a book. An election year was approaching and there was at the time a good chance of another Clinton administration. A couple of publishers were intrigued, but felt it was too political. I had felt sure the work was the most unusual view of The White House ever produced, and certainly the most extensive collection of panoramas. But no dice and Hilary didn’t made it to The White House either. I sent one of the portfolios to my dealer in DC and even he couldn’t drum up any interest. The third portfolio I sent to Barack Obama, which was silly gesture as I am sure he never saw it. I did hear from an appraiser who worked for The White House who wanted to know its value. I told him a million dollars. He chuckled. I asked what became of my gift. He said the last time he saw it; it was on a shelf in the Old Executive Office Building, next door to The White House. Said it would probably be auctioned off at some point. So, the project ended there. But it felt complete by that time. I was done. The photographs don’t begin to tell the whole experience I had there that year. It was mostly good, but not without messy politics and squabbles. But that another story.
