The whole wide world

‘Around We Go’ an historic panoramic look at Albuquerque

Used to capture landscapes, military sites or for city planning, the panoramic format intrigues viewers with its distortion and large-scale vistas.

Straight roads curve, ponds widen into lakes, and buildings bend because the distance between the subject and the camera lens changes as the lens rotates.

Open at the Albuquerque Museum, “Around We Go: Panoramas in Albuquerque” offers 16 sometimes fish-eyed images of streets, fields and buildings dating from 1915 to 1930.

The images are Cirkut prints, shot with one of the first panoramic cameras encompassing a 360-degree view.

“It’s kind of like the wind-up toys,” said exhibit curator Jillian Hartke. “You wound this wind-up key at the bottom of the camera.”

The camera made a clicking sound as it orbited.

The exhibition includes a circa 1928 view of the intersection of Third Street and Central Avenue dominated by the First National Bank Building, a high rise that now serves as offices and lofts. The area bustled with activity as Route 66 brought travelers downtown.

“I love the lady who’s walking by the right of the frame,” Hartke said.

A circa 1920 image of horse-drawn logging carts

reveals the mammoth wheels needed to carry the loads. Logging crews in mountains across New Mexico cut trees for the building of towns and cities across the area. A team of two men and two horses pulled the carriers, also called logging carts. They hauled the cut timber to the railroads, who transported

them to sawmills.

The circa 1915 shot of Blueher Farms captures what is now the location of the Albuquerque Museum, Hartke said. Blueher Farms was one of several in the Old Town area. They often grew crops such as watermelons, cabbage and pumpkins.

“And you can see the

smoke from the sawmill,” Hartke added.

Cirkut cameras were most widely sold by the Eastman Kodak Company, which did not invent them, but merged with the company that did, thereby winning the right to sell and further develop Cirkuts. Cirkut cameras are still the largest format

cameras ever commercially produced, able to create a negative that reaches nearly six feet long and over a foot tall. The dimensions are possible because the film is flexible and winds itself in a drum behind the lens. The cameras were popular and sold in a variety of sizes. Amateurs and professionals clamored for Cirkuts in its first decades, but by World War II, the novelty had worn off, and Eastman Kodak ended the sale of the cameras in 1945.

From multi-plate images to today’s smartphone panoramas, the format continues to capture imaginations with its distinctive view of the world.

COURTESY OF THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM Third Street & Central Avenue, ca. 1928: The intersection of Third Street and Central Avenue in downtown Albuquerque is dominated by the First National Bank Building, a high-rise that now serves as office buildings and lofts. When this photograph was taken, the intersection bustled with activity as Route 66 brought travelers right through the heart of downtown Albuquerque.

COURTESY OF THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM Blueher Farms, Unknown Photographer, ca. 1915, Albuquerque Museum, gift of an unknown donor: Blueher Farm was one of several farms around Old Town in the early 20th century, and they often grew crops such as watermelons, cabbage and pumpkins. Albuquerque Museum is now situated on the old Blueher farmland in this photograph.

COURTESY OF THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM Brooks Studio, Horse-drawn Logging Carts, ca. 1920: Logging crews in mountains all over New Mexico were tasked with cutting trees to assist with the construction of towns and cities across the region. A team of two men and two horses was required for each of these big-wheeled log carriers, also called logging carts. The cut trees were hauled to railroads and trains would carry the logs out of the forests to the sawmills.