Photos

Ok, I'm attempting my first panorama here, so far it is a little confusing, but I think I have followed all the rules. We'll see, if it won't let me upload the larger version then I will just delete and lose today.

This is The Jungle Room, Elvis Presley's favorite room in Graceland, as per the tour tape we listened to as we were herded through on this tour.

The conditions were awful for shooting inside Graceland. There is no flash allowed - in fact, they had so many security people yelling at people to turn off their flashes that it wasn't funny. I went to a cavern like that in Italy years ago, and it made it not even fun because tourists can be so relentlessly moronic. Most people figured out how to turn the flash off on their camera by the time we got this far, though, so it wasn't so bad.

The Jungle Room was lit by a few incandescent bulbs and the midday sunlight streaming into the room. The decor in there, very 1970's, was dark as you can see in the photograph here. Dark green shag rug on the floor and ceiling, dark wood furniture and dark paneling on the walls. I took several shots at several ISOs and exposure compensations to try to get this shot. It was impossible to equalize well between the windows and the inside, to expose just for the inside was impossible - even at my lowest aperture and ISO6400 it was near impossible to hold the camera still enough for that. So I bracketed. Yes, bracketed. I know, that's pretty bad - I should have known what to do in this case - and I would have had I been able to use a tripod or monopod - neither of which were allowed on this tour.

So this is my panoramic result. I know it is less than ideal, but I really wanted to put this somewhere that you could all see it. This tour was amazing. This room was amazing! This place was left as it was when Elvis died - a sort of 1970's time capsule - it brought me back to when I was a young man.

Where were you on the day Elvis died? I remember exactly where I was - and what I was doing when I heard. I was in Navy boot camp, this was the first day we actually were allowed to listen to the radio while we worked in the barracks on that hot August day. We were cleaning the floor, shining it by putting guys on wool blankets and dragging them across the freshly waxed floor to get an extra shine. Somehow it worked, we learned it from previous companies that had gone on to their schools and ships.

I was riding a blanket when the radio told us that Elvis was discovered dead in Graceland.

No, they will not let you enter the bathroom where he passed away. In fact, no one on the tour is allowed upstairs in Graceland.

Anyway, this particular room is a must-see while in Memphis. It is another part of musical Mecca. It is part of rock n' roll history. Just ask Bruce Springsteen or Marc Cohn.

There's a pretty little thing
Waiting for the King
Down in the Jungle Room

I was walking in Memphis
Feet 10 feet off of Beale
I was walking in Memphis
Do I really feel the way I feel?

Ok, now to see if it lets me upload the large version. Saving my text here...

It worked! I know - that large post has some really muddy areas due to the amount of lightening the shadows I had to do. Hell, almost the whole room was a shadow!