Mulate’s. The best frog legs in town!
Panorama Photograph.
January, 2012.

… Not that I am a frog leg enthusiast, or anything.

I was ambitiously awaiting my Cajun Sampler plate filled with bits and pieces of fried goodness. Admiring the pillars, beams, checkered tablecloths and spinning ceiling fans that made up the New Orleans restaurant, I decided that the scene would make a GREAT panorama. It was an old building — that was clear, even to an unaware individual — and I loved how each line supported the other and held the place crookedly upright.

The photographs that make up this panorama have been hibernating in my computer since I captured them in succession about two years go, during a service trip to New Orleans with a group from college. Only a few months ago did I re-discover my bright and super challenging project that I was once so ambitious to commit to.

It was a bit of a challenge to put this together. I recall that there are at least six photographs in this image, pieced together by the use of my finger and my MAC’s track pad. (I like to pretend that Photoshop doesn’t have a tool that patches the photos together with the click of a mouse. There is truly no fun in that feature. The fun only comes from pretending you are a wizard and BAM, instant panorama.) I lined up, resized, stretched, turned, twisted, overlaid, cloned and used my own sense of optical illusion, all so I can say: “Yeah, man. I did that.”

So the pillars are a little bowed. You don’t get that form of craftsman-give-up-ness, “That’s as good as it’s going to get” results with the Adobe-do-it-for-you feature. No, Sir.

In reality, though, I preferred the alligator sausage.