If the US is a Melting Pot, Canada is a Mosaic.

For the past couple of years I kept meaning to put in an entry for the photography exhibit/competition at the Florida State Fair. This year I finally remembered about the competition and entry deadlines in time and decided to put in one of my favorite shots taken at Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park. In itself I really liked the shot, but I decided to make it different by turning it into a Mosaic.

Originally, I took 5 vertically captured, side-by-side, photos of the terrace-like layers of the springs. I then used a photo stitching program call Panorama Factory to put them together to make one panoramic photo.

Then using only photos I had taken while in a National Park/Monument, I used a free program called AndreaMosaic to generate a mosaic. I tried to get it to only use a photo once or at least as few times as possible with the resulting in the use of about 8000+ of the 15000 photos selected and putting them into a 4960 x 2822 picture.


Kristen was instrumental, with her vast graphic design and photography experience, in selecting the right printing type and backing for the photo. In retrospect, I should have allowed the pictures to be bigger since even up close it was difficult to make out the individual tiles that composed the shot, thus losing a bit of the appeal. I may try the same technique next year or maybe look into applying some HDR techniques to some shots for a different effect. We went to the Florida State Fair and found that my submission had won an 'Honorable Mention' award. I would have like to have conveyed that information concerning the individual tiles and where they were taken, but all that was allowed as a short title and name on the title card.