Field Museum

The Field Museum in Chicago has done a lot of renovating and updating of their exhibit halls, but thankfully left these old wooden cases full of taxidermy animals alone. I made several visits to the Field Museum during my sabbatical last year to shoot photos for use in my work. This is one of them. It's actually part of a long panorama, but I like the odd composition of this individual photo.

I made about twenty five different panoramas in the Field Museum. While I liked the idea of making panoramic views of museum spaces, I couldn't find a way to make them work for me. I tried doing them as Polaroid lifts, but the interesting geometry and odd perspectives were lost in the wrinkles and bends of the lifted emulsions. I tried making large van Dyke brown print panoramas, but they came out muddy looking and visually cluttered. I eventually moved on to other things, but I still look at these photos occasionally. I like them, I just don't know what to do with them.