Glassblowing as Performance Art

Chris and Jennifer Jones are the proprietors of Fantome Glass in Historic Downtown Kennewick, Washington.

Chris is pictured here in the process of forming molten glass into a unique and fascinating, perhaps utilitarian, vessel or flower vase.

This ancient art form is both mysterious and captivating to watch. His studio and shop is built to give both customer and passersby a front-row view in the fluid art of glassblowing.

Read and see more about Chris and Jennifer's shop on their website.

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USA-Canada / USA-Washington

Lat: 46° 12' 27.83" N
Long: 120° 8' 8.8" W

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

Nikon D90
Nikon 10.5mm fisheye at f/8
360Precision Atome 10.5 panohead (for cylindrical panos)
PTGui Pro 8 to stitch
Photoshop CS3 for post processing

Earlier in September of this year (2009), I began a self-assigned local community and self promotional project in Historic Downtown Kennewick, Washington (USA), a small downtown area encompassing perhaps 4-5 square blocks and some 2 dozen small businesses. This older downtown area has suffered from the blight of progress, economic expansion of outlying commercial areas and neighborhoods, as well as the retail mall phenomenon with big-box store growth having overtaken most of american consumer culture all around the country.

To date, I have panographed approximately 15 of these diverse local community small businesses as 360º panoramic cylinders, using the 360ºPrecision Atome 10.5 on Nikon D90. I have printed and mounted a show of prints in a local restaurant called Zinful,. and hope to grow this project by way of affiliations with the local downtown area development association and other city officials who can see and envision the power of such images in both print and immersive (web or kiosk) formats. Most of these cylindrical panos include the store owner and/or employees, (as well as my trusty companion Snoopy).

Eventually, I aspire to giving this project longer legs by putting up a website of this collection in both 2D (print image format) as well as in the interactive (QTVR and/or Flash, etc.) format.

Future phases of this project may include 'civic-service' component by way of conducting a workshop for a teen art group interested in learning more about digital photography.