August | 2016 | Thomas A. Germer Photography

Institut de France

I was headed to the Musée D’Orsay, when I passed the Institut de France. Since I was headed to the museum, I did not have my tripod, so this panorama was shot freehand.

Insitut de France (Flattened Cube)

Insitut de France (Stereo 1)

Insitut de France (Stereo 2)

Insitut de France (Stereo 3)

Insitut de France (Stereo 4)

Insitut de France (Stereo 5)

Insitut de France (Stereo 6)

Insitut de France (Stereo 7)

I tried to shoot this room freehand, without a tripod, in February 2015. I found that I had made an error on how I should do these freehand shots, and the stitching did not come out well at all. So, when I returned to Paris in July 2015, I made a point of going back to the Musee D’Orsay and finding this room, the Salle des Fêtes. This time, I did a better job of holding the camera in a constant location as I took all the shots. People were walking in and out, and some people practically insisted that they stand as close to me as possible. There are stitching errors in this series, but they are minor.

ISO 800, f/5.6, 1/50 s, 8 mm focal length on 8-16 mm Sigma f/4.5-5.6 HSM on Canon 7D.

Salle des Fêtes (Flattened Cube):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 1):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 2):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 3):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 4):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 5):

Salle des Fêtes (Stereo 6):

August 7, 2016

Poincaré

Poincaré Cube

This set is the first in a series taken at the Cimetière de Montparnasse in Paris. Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) was a famous mathematician, who contributed many things to a wide number of fields of mathematics. One of them is very important to the field of optical polarimetry. Polarization is a property that light has, because, as an electromagnetic field, the electric and magnetic fields must each be perpendicular to each other and to the direction of propagation. The electric field can be in a single plane containing the propagation direction, in which case it is called linearly polarized, or it can be rotating one way or another, in which case it is called circularly polarized.

In my day job, I am a physicist, and I use the polarization behavior of how materials scatter light to identify and differentiate different sources of scatter. Polarization states are often represented by a point on a unit sphere, referred to as the Poincaré sphere. Points along the equator correspond to linear polarization states, with the longitude corresponding to half the angle of the electric field, while those at the north and south poles correspond to right- and left-circular polarizations, respectively. Points inside the sphere correspond to various degrees of depolarization, with the very center of the sphere being completely unpolarized, random light. So, the Poincaré sphere represents the topology of the statistics of the electromagnetic fields.

In any case, when I arrived at the cemetery, I made a bee line for Poincaré’s family grave, which is easy to find, since it is very close to the Avenue Thierry entrance and right up against the outside wall. All of the stereographic projections are thus titled “Poincaré Sphere (Stereo n),” while the cube is titled “Poincaré Cube.”

See the entire Poincaré collection here or enjoy them below. Enjoy!

Poincaré Sphere (Stereo 6)