Experiencing Gamboa, Panama

Susan Booher, Ohio State University, MFA Candidate
Project Created for the Digital Naturalism Conference, 2019 in Gamboa, Panama

360-degree Rainforest Video:
A Samsung Gear 360-degree camera was used to record the plants and trees of Gamboa’s nearby rainforest to share with aging and disabled people that were currently living in Columbus, Ohio and beyond. I wanted to make the experience an immersive one, so they’d get the sense of being in the rainforest.
I recorded 3 separate 30-second videos along the La Laguna trail within several feet of one another while I hid behind a tree. I wanted to record them to share on Vimeo with older adults to use their computer mouse to scroll over the video to see it in 360 degrees. There’s also potential future use of experiencing these 3 videos in virtual reality through the Unity video game program; individuals could view them through VIVE’s head-mount display and hand controllers.

Experience Gamboa Video Journal:

While I was attending Dinacon2 August 4-10, I journaled the animals I observed so I created a non-360-degree video highlighting some of these animals, plants, and nearby Embera Indian Village. The log of observed animals is shown in the video, which includes a variety of animals and insects. Leaf-cutter ants, hummingbirds, and agoutis were seen every day around Adopta Bosque field station. The video was uploaded to Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/360108961

Observations of Animals 8/4/2019-8/9/2019