Fabrice joined us on our first mission in 2017 in Madeira and Cabo Verde to capture footage and work on the DarewinProject with his partners Fred Buyle and Olivier Borde. Fabrice is a passionate and fun person to work with and his knowledge about virtual reality, 360 shooting, click communication, and so much more is truly impressive. Fabrice answered a few questions about 360 photos and virtual reality below. Over the next days we will share the 360 photos he captured while on mission with us via our Facebook Page.

Find Fabrice on Vimeo, here in a recent interview, and on Facebook

How do 360 photos work?

360 photos are now very easy to use on social media with your phone, computer or tablet. They don’t require viewing goggles like 360 videos do, and they are easy to share because the file size isn’t too heavy. Anyone with a smartphone can take 360 photos. To get high quality shots, like we did for Monaco Explorations, we used 6 cameras shooting in 4K that allow us to create still shots with 32 million pixels. We then manually edit the images with a specific software program. The main difficulty is getting the right position of the subject, which sometimes gets lost between two cameras, so getting a great shot doesn’t happen each time.

What is the biggest challenge of shooting in 360?

Getting photos of wild animal requires that you are always ready, very patient, and most of all “interesting” so the animal will approach you. For example, with the monk seal I used my fingers to attract a calf, moving them slowly, and he was very curious with that movement so he came close to the camera for the “perfect shot”.

What is unique for the audience to view photos in 360?

If you look at it on a phone, tablet or computer it is just a 360 pic you are looking at, but if you look at it in goggles, it totally changes the perspective, the animal is looking at YOU. 360 and virtual reality bring emotions that are very difficult to create in conventional media.