The World Wide Panorama

Introduction

The World Wide Panorama event of the third quarter of 2020 will revisit a theme from the very beginning of the WWP. Which one exactly is still to be decided.

Theme Essay: Revisited: Transportation

The essay conveys the team’s idea of the event. It is usually published together with the Theme announcement and offers a starting point for the contributing photographers.

Revisited: Transportation

by Carsten T. Rees

With this event we are starting a new series: Revisited. There have been so many great themes for the World Wide Panorama over the last 16 (!!!) years. Why not have a Look how the locations of these events have changed? Or let’s see how the perception or the interpretation of these themes have changed over the years. By introducing this series, we want to open a somewhat “multidimensional” dialog: One between different perceptions, a dialog between different interpretations, dialog over the years and sometimes even a dialog with your own old panoramas. But what shall we revisit first? Since Brideshead has never been a theme of the WWP, we have started a little poll. And the winner is: Transportation! The theme of the September event 2006. Let’s have a look at the old essay:

Transportation

The English word transportation derives from the Latin 'trans-' meaning 'across', 'beyond', or 'through' and 'portare' meaning 'to carry'. It is defined as 'a system or means of conveying people or goods from place to place'.

The theme can be applied to so much more than just the obvious automobiles, airplanes, and trains. Anything that moves from one place to another has been transported. A person's own two feet are a form of transportation. A power line transports energy from one place to another the way a river transports not only water but also goods.

Some of the more obvious subjects also can be excellent panoramic themes. Most people have been on a commercial jetliner, but many have never seen the cockpit or perhaps the first class cabin. A train may be a normal form of transportation where you are, but a sleeping car may be something that others of us have only seen in movies. Ferries, hovercrafts, spacecraft, small SMART cars, large Hummers, motorcycles, the cab of a big rig, an object movie of a Segway, running shoes, pit row of a NASCAR event, the inside of a huge recreational vehicle - just a couple of ideas. But don't rule out some of the less obvious connections to the theme. Not the actual form of transportation, but the medium that makes it possible. Roads, bridges, waterways, train tracks, train stations, airports, harbors, ports, even parking lots. Also the things that make transportation possible: auto dealerships, oil refineries, gas stations, even oil derricks.

A panorama is also a form of transportation, even if virtually, it takes the viewer to another place and allows them to steer their attention where they want to.

Almost any panorama can be connected to transportation somehow, but we're asking you to try to tell a story with your choice and connect it to the theme. Be as literal or creative as you want. And please provide us with at least a bit of a caption describing why you chose the subject you did and how you feel it connects to the theme of transportation. Remember, without transportation everything stops.