Using a similar technique to the interior panoramic photo previously written about on this blog, we were able to achieve a nice linear composition of the central oculus of the Cypress Circle Cafe at the Houston Zoo that we were shooting in collaboration with the project’s architects, Lake|Flato. The space features a beautiful old cypress tree as a central focus to its outdoor seating (provided by the projects interior designers at Gin Design Group) and it was important for the designers to have an image that captures this relationship. In addition to this technical challenge, our objective was to show the activity of the cafe and zoo without creating an image that felt chaotic. One method we commonly employ to do this is to take a variety of exposures that capture the activity, scale and energy of a space in several areas and then compositing together in Photoshop. This method allows us complete control over where people are in the scene that would not be possible otherwise in a public space such as this. To add to the challenge, the zoo had just been reopened at limited capacity after being closed due to COVID-19 regulations, so we also had to deal with trying to capture visitors without masks when it was safe to do so.