Back in early 2000, Derek and I had an idea - let's start a Virtual Tour company. From our parent's house, I was working as a Web Designer and he was a photographer. It seemed like it could work.
We had just a few problems:
- equipment for Virtual Tours was expensive and specialised
- no one really knew what a Virtual Tour was so getting clients would be tough
- we had nowhere exciting / commercial to test some initial shots
Luckily, the new Pavilions Shopping Centre had just opened in Swords and being from Swords, the Centre was just a short walk away.
We purchased the equipment we needed and set out to take some test shots (below).
Admittedly, the photos are very low quality but they were actually the best quality available at the time.
But I'm actually glad I have these photos. They are a little bit of history - a history of both the Pavilions and The 360 company too.
I'm glad to say today that both are still going strong over 16 years later. We went down every day for a coffee and planned the business so in many ways, the Pavilions (to us) is where we started.
By the way, someone asked me privately why the photos were taken at knee-height. There's a very simple reason - the tripod and camera were much more discrete at knee height than setting up a larger full-height tripod.
