Rocky Butte in NE Portland is a great local place to practice rope skills in a safe, nearby environment. Most of what goes on - tying knots, belaying/rappeling, 1:1 teaching - would normally lend itself to close ups and telephoto shots. I had taken many of these, but none of them really exhibited the group atmosphere that was present without seeming cluttered.

I zoomed out with my lens and started looking around. I could get a couple climbers, or climbers and their belayers, but going wider to get more wasn't possible, and wouldn't have helped the images i was seeing because everyone would just get smaller. I thought a panorama might be a nice idea, but 10 people across climing up a boring wall wasn't too interesting. When I finally looked around from the top of the wall, i knew i had what i was looking for.

The picture looks like a fisheye at first glance, but it's really just a simple pan - we're just so used to seeing pans paralell to the horizon that the perspective and twin vanishing points throw our eyes off. It's perfect because your eyes are drawn to the vanishing points- the ends of the road - but are interrupted by the orange jacket on the left. That's balanced next by noticing the black jacket to the right, then 'filling in the blanks'. Eyes don't focus on any one individual climber - just that there're lots of them, and they're coming up. Because of the lack of emphasis on individual climbers, the semi-blurry seams between photos are inconsequential, even though they're so easily visible if you're looking for them.

The individual shots were taken at aperture priority, f/8, and about 18mm. Afterwards, they were digitally stiched and blended together on the computer.