VRMAG ISSUE 29 IS ONLINE

We are in the middle of the IPY,The International Polar Year, which is a large scientific programme focused on the Arctic and the Antarctic from March 2007 to March 2009. IPY occurs amidst abundant evidence of changes in snow and ice, including reductions in extent and mass of glaciers and ice sheets, reductions in area, timing, and duration of snow cover, and reductions in extent and thickness of sea ice. The observations and modeling of IPY will document and quantify the extent, rate and impact of snow and ice changes and their integrated impact on global sea level.

For that reason I thought that it would have been nice if VRMAG covered the issue, paying tribute to this joint effort, through the panoramas and words of a group of very different and special men, creating outstanding panoramas related to the theme ice. You will be standing on glacier summits, get inside them, meet polar bears, experience northern lights and much, much more.

Jordi Clariana, takes you on a 2 weeks photographic expedition to the Svalbard Island; Witek Katzskin, who lives and works at the Horsund polish Polar station shares his experiences; Dr Matt Nolan studies the impacts of climate change on the arctic landscape; Rodion Galanev travels to Karelia, a.k.a. the region of thousands lakes, Werner Weber captures the St Moritz White Turf Horse race, Jean-Pierre Lavoie, in Quebec City, shoots the Red Bull Crashed Ice skating competition; Keiji Yokotani takes you to the Shikotsu Ice festival in Japan; Yvan Van Hoorickx invites you to the indoor Snow & Ice Sculpture Festival in Bruges; Tabb Firchau shoots from a RC helicopter a partially frozen Green Lake in Seattle Washington...

But this is only a portion of the experiences awaiting you in this issue 29 of VRMAG.

Since we believe Love is the most important thing on this planet, we'll take you to Paris where you will discover very special ways to declare your love to your significant other and to Life Ball, Wien, where Love has an universal meaning; from Mali with Médecins Sans Frontières, to Molokai, to meet father Damien, a charismatic and compassionate caregiver. From love to beauty, we did not forget to show you the treasures of the European monarchy, the wonders of flash, with dancing Lauren, and the folklore of Scotland and its Highland games, in a trip which has as waypoints Dubai, Turkey's palaces, Polish churches, Spain (hanging at 230 meters from the ground), the beautiful beaches of Brazil, with some...naked beauties (oh yes, VRMAG team has its weaknesses too...).

For our "inside" series this time you will be able to enter a dishwasher, a sports shoe, a halloween pumpkin, as well as enter a Avro vulcan cockpit, a Nascar race truck, get into Ratatouille's Kitchen, and finally view the inside of a fridge with a very special model, the vegetarian turtle "Iso". Not only. We even meddled in politics, with panoramic images of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and many more...

Our guest artist for this issue is Henry Stuart who shares the secrets of his success; Greg Downing describes how he created 270 gigapixel images in 3 1/2 months and shows a series of breathtaking gigapixel images, our columnist Pat St Clair reviews the HDR software Hydra; while Jook Leung announces his new workshop in Maine. Get to know better Denis Chumakov, the creator of Flash Panorama Player, Alexandre Jenny, co-creator of Autopano Pro. Michael Thoby talks about Enfuse for night photography while Jeffrey informs about the 2008 Panotools meeting in Prague he's organizing...

You're just a click away from enjoying the new VRMAG issue!

Your Marco Trezzini and the VRMAG team

VRMAG ISSUE 29 IS ONLINE: http://www.vrmag.org