Ryan Ganley

"Little Planets"

August 3 -25, 2012

On Friday, August 3, 2012 Speakeasy Art held the opening reception for Ryan Ganley: Little Planets. As a creative and expressive endeavor, Ryan Ganley has been exploring panorama photography during his several years of traveling as far as China and as close as his own backyard. His Little Planets are created by warping and image from a horizontal panoramic into a Toroid or a doughnut shape. Utilizing this technique, Ryan transforms his current panoramas into an all encompassing image. "The little planet series gives the viewer the feeling of seperation between themselves and the subject, as if they were watching these planets float past. They give the impression that this place exists as it's own world and has no other connections. It is a small world after all", says Ganley.

A Little Planet starts out as a traditional panoramic image utilizing a wide angle lens. The image is then stitched together using photoshop and manipulated into a circle by bringing the two ends of the panorama together. Stereographic photogaphy projection has been used in making world maps for years, however the opposite approach is used to make a Little Planet. A humans eye sight has it limitations, for example, we can't see behind our own head until turning around. A 360 degree panoramic can provide us with all of that information, but still has a beginning and an end. Where Little Planets do not, they are an endless sphere that allow a true grasp of an entire scheme. For this reason, Ryan Ganley's Little Planets truly encompasses what a panoramic should be.