2014 Panoramic View of Helena
View scans from Mount Helena, now a city municipal park with the Last Chance Gulch Drainage, now the city's Main Street at it's base. It was here gold was first discovered back in the summer of 1964.
The next major city landmark are the spires of the St. Helena Cathedral, an iron-frame with a faux-marble facade facsimile of the Gothic European Chapels that were built entirely of stone during the Mid-evil Days. It was erected through the ambition of Helena Diocese Bishop, John Carroll, who wanted to establish a dominant Catholic presence in the mostly Free Masonic Protestant dominated 1914 Political Center. All during the 20th Century the Spires of the Cathedral dominated the skyline over the City's Downtown Shopping and Financial Center until the Urban Renewal Era of the 1970's destroyed the local established business districts using Eminent Domain Laws and later force created new shopping centers at the outskirts of the community. The most recent regional mall was erected on former church property, site of the abandoned Good Shepard Home and Farm just outside the city on North Montana Ave. adjacent to the Catholic Cemetery, almost a decade after the now church dominated local government had blocked repeated efforts by a local land developer wanting to build a similar mall South of town on his family homestead lands near the 'new' monopoly Community Hospital (formed by merging the Catholic and Episcopalian Church owned hospitals, the two churches still hold joint ownership along with a major not for profit Health Insurance Corporation.) The earlier proposed mall would have had many of the same chain retail stores in it. Bishop Carroll also established a small private liberal arts Jesuit Seminary College in the community (seen directly to the North behind the Cathedral Spires.) The peaks directly behind the college are called Scratch-gravel Hills. A memorial on the Scratch-gravel Hiking trail marks the spot where Niles Yide, a Carroll Star Football player from Helena, committed suicide, reportedly after having been harassed and racially-discriminated for several months on the campus following questionable allegations of date-rape on the campus ended Yide's future football prospects at both the college and the expected NFL Draft in 2002.
In the near center you can see the outline of what now looks like a person lying on his back, The Bear-tooth Mountains, known as the Sleeping Giant ever since the devastating 1936 Earthquake toppled the spire that had made that mountain resemble the carnivore's Jawbone.
Finally, panning to the right side you can see the dome of the Montana State Capitol Building and State Offices Complex in this photo image. The Capitol was erected beginning in 1889 after Helena won the State Seat of Government, following a campaign involving bitter and often corrupt legislative activity.
This is only half of the actual image, behind me are open forest mountains, mostly city-owned or private Land Trust Open Space Lands, crossed with bicycle and hiking trails that are frequented by many of the local young adults who had re-located to the community in search of political influential or regulatory jobs with the lifestyle of close proximity to the natural environment.
The photograph was initially an experiment, as well as a belated 12-year birthday treat for my Standard Poodle, Charlie. Thinking neither of us was healthy or fit enough to make the hike up here from my house, about a half-mile away down the steep front slope, I parked at the West base of the hill and lugged a heavy studio tripod, with an antique (now 20 year old) special European precision Panoramic head designed for view cameras, and my Nikon D-3000 Digital Camera with an antique 28mm Nikon D-2 Cameral Lens to the summit of the hill, about 1/4 mile up from the end of the street. I then made 360 deg of subsequent exposures using the nearly level head, adjusted behind the theoretical ideal film plane, to prevent distortion from the antique lens intended for creating film panoramic views. The final views were stitched together in HI-RES using PhotoShop CS, taking about 4 hours. With film there would have been repeated prints, overlays, and re-exposure to obtain the result all being at the final desired size or larger to retain detail. An impossible feat given limitations of film and distance required from the image.That would have taken several days of work. However to print just this entire image at 8" wide would result in a photo well over 6 feet long. To do it the way I'd like would result in an image 16 inches high by over 20 feet long to show the entire cyclorama view - costing several hundred dollars to make using laser jet technology today - and where could I ever display this? It was a fun experiment however!
